Question and Answer Session
Murat Mercan, Chairman, Foreign Affairs Commission, Grand National Assembly, Turkey
Thank you very much. Now, we are discussing the security challenge, challenges of the future. I have a short comment and the questions for the panellists. Now, none of the security challenges we had since the Second World War have been dealt with. In fact, the world is getting even worse; whether it be the Middle East, Israel, Iraq or Afghanistan, Yemen, Caucasus and many other places where the well-known traditional diplomacy seemed to not be working. At the same time, we have the additional challenge of conflict among the civilisations. Now, my question to Mr Carl Bildt is: how would you assess or how would you criticise the Western world to not be able to achieve a kind of strategy to handle these problems and to come up with a real resolution or conflict solution?
In other words, I want some sort of Western criticism towards what went wrong from the Western view. In the same way, I want to ask HRH Prince Turki the opposite direction: what went wrong by the Western world that we were not able to address any of these problems and you were not able to solve any of them? Maybe this will help us to be more provocative and to come up with new methodologies in the future.
Dr Nasser Mohammed Yusif Al Balooshi, Ambassador of Bahrain to France
Since I came yesterday, we did not talk about terrorist financing, and the continuity of terrorist attacks is not only on account of their determination but because we failed to stop the flow of finance into their hands that are translated later on into weapons and new recruits to make more attacks. We have succeeded to stop only tax evaders and others, but we did not succeed in stopping the finance of terrorists, otherwise they would not continue. Thank you.
Jean-Claude Mallet, State Advisor, State Council, France; IISS Council Member
Thank you. My question really goes to both His Royal Highness and Prime Minister Bildt. First I would like to congratulate this Dialogue for taking into its hands the new concepts of security. Having chaired President Sarkozy’s commission on the White Paper on National Security and Defence, I can testify that two years ago it was already very important to include in our security and defence approaches all these dimensions that have been underlined. I seize this opportunity to really call for everyone here to integrate its own security and GCC concept, and also digitalised information warfare; protection and offensive, because this will be one of the future threats, including for this region. My question really belongs to the question of values in this region, and the future of those values. These values have been threatened: the value of tolerance, of living together and exchanges, they have been threatened. The strategic mistakes made by the Bush administration have unleashed real centrifuge forces all around this region. So, what can we do and what can you do? This question is both to Prince Turki and to Carl Bildt as an observer, but a very experienced one.
We have Palestinians behind barbed walls confined there. We have hundreds of thousands of Christians leaving Iraq. We have centrifuge forces in Iraq. We also have attempts to mount Shiite against Sunnis across the region. Now, this has religious, social and human impacts. So, in your security approach, how do you take this into account? I know there have been a lot of efforts but how do you include this dimension of the threat against the basic traditional values of this region in order to counter those threats? Thank you.
Joshua Rogin, Staff Writer, Foreign Policy
Thank you. This being my first Manama Dialogue, I must say that I have been extremely impressed by the level and substance of the discussion on matters of strategy and policy. But, what I have seen less of is discussion of the Western public diplomacy effort in this region. I do not think I am breaking any news when I say that while cooperation at the elite levels is good, the view of America …[and by extension] the West among the populations of the countries represented here has much room for improvement. In Washington, where I live, there is confusion about how to increase support for Western initiatives in what is often referred to as ‘the Arab streets’. Now, that is understandable considering that what is this conference, if not a meeting of elites with a few journalists mixed in for good measure? But I would like to ask our panellists if they could discuss the challenge and some recommendations for how to increase the chances of our public diplomacy efforts succeeding, because it strikes me that could only help the chances of the success of all of the items and cooperation we have assembled here to discuss. Thank you.
Odeh Aburdene, Senior Advisor, CT Capital Trust Group; IISS Member
My question is to HRH Prince Turki. Can you tell us about the role of Egypt and the GCC in stabilising countries like Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon? Egypt has been absent in this conference, and I would like to hear your views on that.
Dr John Chipman
Thank you. Well, first I will turn to Carl Bildt for what are the faults of the West in dealing with all these security issues, cyber security, sectarianism, public diplomacy and if you would like to comment on Egypt and the GCC, that is open to you as well.
Carl Bildt, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sweden
Okay. I think I will abstain from the latter issue and leave that to Prince Turki. Some more philosophical reflection of how we failed in the West: when it comes to strategic issues and security issues, I think you need to have a long perspective. Some issues need to be managed for some time until the constellation of the stars is such that they are ripe for resolution. You need to pursue your policies with deep and long breath in very many cases. And if you do that, the record of the West is not that bad. Go back not that long in time, a quarter of a century, and we were still in a world where a mistake in the centre of Europe would have meant the end of the world as we know it within 30 minutes in a strategic nuclear exchange. We had enormous amounts of weapons concentrated in the centre, the heart of Europe. There were enormous amounts of weapons aimed at each other from the then Soviet Union, if you remember that thing, and the United States. It was a particularly dangerous world. And all of the intellectual energies of the West were concentrated on managing that particular thing until such time as it suddenly was possible to get some sort of solution, and that was in the impossible. We saw, first time in human history, the dissolution of a gigantic well-armed empire more or less peacefully. More or less peacefully has never happened before. The dissolution and the demise of such empires are normally associated with big wars. So that is truly a success story that was there. That should not be forgotten.
Then of course there are the issues that you might argue we neglected in that period. I mean, Israel-Palestine is 60-60 years of failure. It is of course the most obvious one in this particular region, and I think part of the reason why it was neglected was that it was necessary to concentrate on that other critical challenge, because we could all have perished if we had mishandled that particular one.
At the same time, opening up or trying to stimulate the opening up of other places in the world; China is the most notable example. Today, every six hours, China exports as much as it did in all of the year of 1978. The year before the opening. That is also a success story of the West to a certain extent, that that great transformation so far has been possible in peace. Therefore, I would argue the track record is not that bad. But of course, we have numerous challenges that are often new [in] nature.
Ithink, with Samuel Huntingdon to say in a phrase that I think captures a lot of it: ‘We went from an age of ideology, the ideological conflicts, to an age of identity.’ The identity conflicts are the ones that are more difficult; more difficult than the territorial ones or the …[ideological] ones, and to a certain extent, the cultural ones. We are still struggling with them but you have to see it in a somewhat longer perspective, and this really is of course core of some of them, be that Afghanistan, Iran or Israel-Palestine. Then you have some reflections on what Mr Mallet said. I think the French security paper, two or three years ago, is one of the most interesting such papers to come out of any country in recent years. It clearly did bring to attention the issues of cyber security, which are today much more the subject of attention. In my opinion, if there is one security issue that I am quite certain would be much more in the forefront five years from now, it is the cyber security issues because we are so enormously dependent on these networks. I mean, everything everywhere is dependent on the security of the networks. They are very vulnerable to attack. We have to defend both the security of the networks, and I would argue, the freedom of the networks; not allow them to be highjacked by forces or regimes that want to limit things because they should be seen as opening up the possibilities for the future. However, the security of them is clearly one of the sorts of dominant concerns in the next few years.
But the question was somewhat more philosophical nearly, in terms of where we go. You see Christian minorities leaving Mesopotamia. There are certain very old Christian communities that have been part of the fabric of Mesopotamia for 2,000 years that are by now bigger in Sweden than in Mesopotamia. This might be seen as a gain for Sweden, perhaps, but is a loss for the region. And I would argue that one of the big issues that we have in all of our societies is this sort of fight for diversity that is often under challenge in our societies and in yours.
I would also argue that the concept of globalisation as such is a hell, because that means that we meet more frequently individuals or whatever and we see the differences that are there. That is not a problem among the elites, but as these societies become more integrated, it is not only elites meeting, it is everyone meeting. There is this friction there that needs to be handled. The contact between different cultures can result in clashes and conflict, but I would argue also, primarily in creativity for the future. This is a balancing act that we need to handle within the domestic political environments of our individual countries, between the regions and in the world as a whole. However, awareness of the nature of that challenge, I think, is very important, and it is one of the most difficult challenges of our time. I meet it when I go on election campaigns in Sweden, I meet it when I discuss the Israel-Palestine issue here, and I meet it when I go to the Balkans. I am quite certain that we will meet it when we have to manage the continued rise of a very assertive China in the years ahead. But awareness of the nature of the issue might be the first step in trying to handle it in a proper way.
HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Chairman, Board of Directors, King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies
What went wrong in our part of the world was many things. One of them of course was the importation of government systems and values. In totality, that began, and I might say, with the Kemalist Revolution in Turkey, when we saw the importation of Swiss law as a replacement to the then established sharia law in Turkey. And that set the trend in other countries…. I think now with more maturity, people are looking back on these matters with clarity of sight and particular evaluation as to where the benefits are and where some of the deficits are. Other things that went wrong, of course, are the issues of military coups in the Arab and Muslim world. If you go across the world from the Atlantic to Southeast Asia, we will find the exercise of military coups. I do not know the exact numbers but it definitely rivals the military coups that took place in South America. As such, the overturning of societies every once in a while was reason for the retardation of development in our part of the world. I am not here simply to condemn military coups as a means of achieving political power, but also I would say, and proudly so, to advance and propose the other example that we have, particularly in our part of the world here in the Gulf, as having been more successful.
We chose the sustenance of the local ruling means and systems coming from within the social fabric of the countries themselves. And their willingness to engage in evolution and redevelopment rather than revolution and rhetoric as a means of advancing the welfare of the people.
It has not all been bad, as the prime minister mentioned regarding the world in general. But I think for the Muslim world, the number of educated people today is much greater than it has ever been. I know in my country, and I can speak only for my country, that education has been primary target for all of the governments that have come since the establishment of the kingdom back in 1932, both for men and for women. Our problems on issues like human rights, freedom of the press and other, if you like, standards that have become accepted as the frame of what governance should be, is still a work in progress in many of our countries. However, there is progress. Many of us will probably remember the first UN Human Development Report about our part of the world, which came out back in 2002. But, has anyone looked at the last UN Human Development Report from our part of the world? The first one took the headlines because it identified where the deficiencies were on all of these issues. The last one probably did not get the same attention because it showed that there has been progress since the first one. It does not capture the media attention that the first one caught. Therefore, on those issues, I will go back to the question on values and agree that there are problems of whether it is sectarian or human rights or ethnic problems in our part of the world. However, there are also attempts to try to overcome these problems. One was mentioned yesterday in the Saudi Foreign Minister’s message to the conference, which was the King Abdullah initiative on religious and cultural dialogue, which is a very huge step forward coming from a country like Saudi Arabia. It is identified by many people, not just in the West but worldwide, as a country full of contradictions, not to say downright restrictions and persecution of other sects and minorities.
This is where some of the solutions, I think, for our problems should be solved; in taking these bold steps forward on issues like that: women’s rights, human rights and freedom of the press, etc. Being works in progress is no excuse for taking steps to push them forward, and I know that particularly in the Kingdom, but generally in the GCC, this is where people are heading. Examples like Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar and Oman, as well as Saudi Arabia where you can find such progress taking place.
On the issue of public diplomacy in our part of the world, I would say sir, we need your diplomats, and I am glad to say I see this happening, doing less lecturing and more listening. I know my experience with your present and previous ambassadors have shown me that that issue is very much in good hands. They are going out to the rest of the Kingdom and listening to and engaging with people, and not simply staying in Riyadh, in a very much fortified embassy afraid of leaving it, being bombed or whatever. This is a good sign and I am sure this is happening in other countries, particularly in the GCC. Therefore, that is my answer to your question on that. On Egypt’s role, Odeh Aburdene, I think he is probably more aware of what is happening in Egypt than I am but nonetheless, I would say that the Egyptian role has been there and continues to be there. All you have to do is just see how many trips the foreign minister and the minister in charge of intelligence have been making to countries like Yemen, for example. They have been there frequently. Countries like Sudan, Eritrea, and not to mention the other Arab countries in the area. Therefore, there is not lack of an Egyptian role. Maybe the media is now less concerned or less active in reporting that role because Egypt’s role nowadays is very constructive. When it used to be less so in the past, it got more attention, perhaps, and particularly in the Western press.
However, I would not say that Egypt is out of the game. It is very much in the game. On terrorist financing, I find that a very important question, and a question that is devilling not just us in the area here but all over the world. Terrorist activities: if you look at the most heinous of them, which was the one in New York, it did not take too much money to do. Therefore, they really do not need that much money to explode a bomb in Sana’a or in Riyadh or in the subway system in London or the railway system in Madrid and so on. With little finance, they can have maximum effect by their criminal activity. But nonetheless, where does that finance come from? Somebody was asking me earlier today about drug money in Afghanistan as perhaps being a source of that financing, and I am sure that might be. Drug money will go wherever the ones who take advantage of it will seek it. One of the solutions for that drug money, and this is a story I heard from an American friend of mine, and I do not know how true it is but it deserves investigation, that in the mid 60s, Turkey was suffering from a drug problem where cocoa and other drug-producing plants were grown and sold, etc. What happened was the Turkish government, with agreement with the United States government, put a programme of buying the entire drug crop from the farmers directly who planted these plants. That happened two or three years until the farmers themselves collected enough money to go in other businesses or other plants to plant them.
Nowadays, we no longer hear of Turkey as a major source of drugs in the world. It has shifted to places like Afghanistan and other parts of the world. Therefore maybe something there can be done, and I think it deserves the attention of governments to follow that route, perhaps, rather than simply as happening in places like Latin America and so on, where you just go and bomb the areas where these crops are growing and burn them. What happens generally is people, the farmers, would shift to other areas and would continue planting the same drug. Therefore, just as there is a résumé, if you like, while we particularly in the Kingdom, but I think more generally, in the GCC, have issues to face and challenges to meet, there is a determined effort on the part of the people here to go forward.
I always remind my Saudi and other interlocutors that reform in our part of the world is not only vertical but it is horizontal. The leadership and the government and institutions are pushing for reform. But equally important, if not more so, the general public in our part of the world is also pushing for reform. There will be missteps, there will be issues that are retarded and there will be back steps sometimes. But the general trend, I think, is rather forward.
Dr Dana Allin, Foreign Policy and Transatlantic Affairs; Editor, Survival, IISS
Thank you, John. My question to Prince Turki concerns the US strategic presence in the region. If you look at that presence going back to let us say the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, for the ensuing two decades, I think it is safe to say that [the] American role here has not been unproblematic for America’s Arab hosts and it has not been unproblematic for the United States. It might be more comfortable to go back to a more ‘over the horizon’ posture, but I would observe that if the Iranian nuclear problem continues indefinitely to cause tension or even conflict, the US strategic role here will be obviously maintained and in certain respects augmented. Therefore, my two-part question: first [do] you agree that this augmented security presence is in the logic of the situation and second, can you reflect on the implications for US and Arab relations in the future?
HH Sh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs, UAE
Let me just point out three mega‑trends in Gulf security that are disturbing and not comforting, to say the least. One is the globalisation of Gulf security. There is a tendency for more foreign interventions and involvement in Gulf security, which I do not think is very reassuring. The second trend that we have been witnessing lately, which will continue into the future, is the militarisation of Gulf security. More money has been spent on arms, and this will go on in the future. The militarisation of Gulf security is not necessarily a very positive trend in the future. The final and worst of those mega‑trends to me is the nuclearisation of Gulf security. If it goes nuclear that will definitely be a qualitative change in Gulf security. What I would like to hear from Prince Turki and Minister Bildt is whether they have any comments about how we listen to the negative impacts of these three mega‑trends – the globalisation, militarisation and nuclearisation of Gulf security.
Mohammad Al Sager, Chairman, Council for Arab and International Relations, Jordan
My question is to Mr Carl Bildt. I would like to hear your thoughts on the following. Roger Cohen published an op‑ed in The New York Times on 26 October, and he highlights the successes of Turkey’s foreign policy towards its neighbours. He says that ‘Turkey can be the West’s conduit to the Muslim world if Washington can bury its pique. The new Turkey won’t abandon NATO or its American alliance: if NATO wants to talk to the Taliban, or the West to Iran, it can help.’ The question is: if integrating Turkey to the EU helps and benefits global security, and further bridges the West with the world, what do you think is holding us back?
Professor Vitaly Naumkin, Director, Institute of Oriental Studies, The Russian Academy of Sciences; Adviser, Security Council of the Russian Federation
Minister Bildt, this is a question about the possibility of the creation of a regional security system and whether it is going to happen some time in the future. What can be done today for an intellectual design of such a security system? Some confidence‑building measures could be done now. What features of such a regime could be envisaged?
My first question to his HRH Turki is about the prospects he could see for Sudan now, given it is entering a very turbulent period. The second question returns to this problem of cyber security and whether GCC states are planning to do something better in order to provide better cyber security?
Pedro Zwahlen, Head, International Security Section, Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Switzerland
Foreign Minister Bildt, what can the countries of this region learn from EU development in practical or institutional terms?
Baria Alamuddin, Foreign Editor, Al Hayat; IISS Member
We were talking yesterday and today about ASEAN and the importance of economic movement to the East. I wonder if we are also going to see a shift in political power and military presence. How would this affect this area? Are we going to see the greater influence of China, for example, when it comes to Gulf or this region’s security? Carl, you mentioned that regional security should be more integrated. We know that in the Arab League, defence is least effective in cooperation between all Arab countries. Yesterday we also heard King Abdullah talking about dealing with countries here individually. What can you tell us to improve this?
Ali Al Shihabi, Chairman, Rasmala Investment Bank Ltd
There was a lot of focus in this conference on future and soft security. I would like your comments on two hard security issues that are present on the ground now. One is Israeli nuclear weapons and the other is the presence of foreign troops in the GCC region. As we know, in five of six GCC regions foreign troops are present. They might have good relations, but you do not know how things will develop in the future. It is curious, to say the least, that five out of six countries have foreign troops present. The Israeli nuclear issue is addressed more to the Foreign Minister of Sweden; how do you think it is best to deal with that? Are sanctions a viable option? Is there a plan to deal with the presence of foreign troops in the GCC in the medium to long term? How is that plan taking shape on the ground? How would you deal with that issue?
James Hackett, Editor, The Military Balance, IISS
My question to the HRH Prince Turki is slightly granular, but I wanted to take advantage of your presence on this panel to ask it. I wonder if you could expand on your opinion of the lessons for the Saudi armed forces after the actions against Houthi forces earlier in this year. What did they do well? What could they have done better? What are the implications of this for force development?
Major General (Retd) Mahmoud Irdaisat, Director, National Centre for Strategic Studies, King Abdullah Academy for Defence Studies, Royal Jordanian National Defence College; IISS Member
In this conference and others around the region, there is a lot of concentration on so‑called ‘Gulf security’. Yes, it is justified, but my question is whether it is possible to have Gulf security without regional security, or to exclude it from regional security. If we really are not just brainstorming, we have been doing little. It has been mentioned yesterday and today that we are not addressing the core issue, which is destabilisation, making the region insecure for a long time. This issue has not really been addressed as it should be, by the West or by us, as has been mentioned yesterday. Can we go forward with regional security without jumping into peripheral security matters, although important, such as Iranian or other issues? We have a core issue we are trying to avoid.
Dr John Chipman
I am sure the Foreign Minister of Sweden and Prince Turki, in the way they wrap this up, will address questions you have in your heart and have not had a chance to pose.
Khalid Fahad Al Khater, Director, Strategic Dialogues Department, GCC Secretariat
My question goes to His Excellency Carl Bildt. I could not really help, when listening to your presentation, remembering elements of the greater Middle East project, the core of which was always Israel, and then normalising the economic flow, with technology, people, etc. The core security issue here remains Israel.
Always the prospect has been that the peace process will be the solution. Watching over these last few months, and seeing the efforts of decades of peace initiatives, shuttle diplomacy and ideas, while American presidents come and go, at the end, we are at the point where a few months’ freeze is put at the feet of Israel to accept. The question that has always been is: how can Israel get away with being the cause of instability and excuse the potential weapons race? One solution has been to put more pressure on the Palestinians; the other is to excuse Israel because of its fractured politics. The Palestinians have no more to give. We have Abbas resigning or going to the UN Security Council, and the fractured politics here have become a regional, or perhaps international, security issue. Maybe some of the enthusiasm we see for reform in some of the countries of the region, like Yemen, or invading countries and not trying to fix them, should go [into] the internal politics of Israel, in trying to make it comply. My question is: how can international society make Israel comply with security, regional stability and peace in this area?
Raghida Dergham, Senior Diplomatic Correspondent and Columnist, Al Hayat
I want to ask if there is going to be a grand bargain between Iran and the US. What are the elements of such a bargain, from your point of view? Is it wise to continue concentrating only on the nuclear issue? The Arabs say we need to be at the table. Should they come with other issues to the table, rather than focusing it only on nuclear and not dealing with the other dimension of the regional ambitions of Iran? The new thing we observed here is that both Secretary Clinton and the defence secretary of the UK spoke in warning about a nuclear arms race in the region, if Iran does not make a settlement. Has this conversation of a nuclear arms race started? There is a notion that maybe the US is ready to allow Iran to keep its nuclear capability, as long as it is not activated immediately. I would like both Prince Turki and Carl Bildt to comment on that. Thank you.
HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud
I start on the issue of the presence of foreign troops, mostly American, in the area, and whether or not they pose a problem. They do. There is no other way of looking at it. Take their presence in Iraq for example. They came with the intention of overturning the government and it was an invasion. Iraqis are shooting at them and killing them. That is not how American troops are present in Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar or the UAE. They have come with agreements beforehand – in the Kingdom’s case for training; in other countries, for mutual defence agreements and so on. The intent of their presence is important here. After the liberation of Kuwait, the presence of American troops in the Kingdom caused internal social and ideological unrest. The reasons for that ended and there are no longer American combat troops in the Kingdom. That is a direct answer to a specific question of whether they cause problems or not.
On the militarisation of Gulf security and the nuclear option, all Gulf countries have declared their commitment to a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the area, which of course includes nuclear weapons. All the Gulf countries are signatories to the Non‑Proliferation Treaty (NPT), so there is no reason for any of those countries, according to the Saudi and other officials who have spoken on this issue, for any of the Gulf countries to go for a nuclear weapon. However, the fact is a zone free of weapons of mass destruction might take some time. It is also, without any doubt, an issue of concern and discussion among Gulf countries. I would not be surprised if, at the GCC meeting in Abu Dhabi tomorrow, after tomorrow and the day after, that issue figures prominently, as it did in previous GCC Summits.
On the two small questions of my friend Vitaly Naumkin, I will give you two small answers. As we hear from the press, Sudan is a country that is moving towards separation. There has been agreement beforehand between the so‑called ‘north’ and ‘south’ on how to go about that. The disagreements that are taking place now are over procedure, rather than whether or not there is going to be a referendum. I do not know how that is going to be resolved. I am not in the loop on the other problem of Darfur, so cannot comment, other than to refer you to what is published by the UN, the Arab League and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) on that matter.
On cyber security, I know that all countries, not just in the GCC, are probably looking back on how to improve cyber security to avoid such issues as WikiLeaks and others. If it can happen in America, imagine how much concern and interest concerns like the GCC countries have in that.
Israeli nuclear issues can be and should be solved through the zone free of weapons of mass destruction, as should the Iranian nuclear issue.
I really do not know about Saudi action on the Houthis. You will have to look at what comes out of the Ministry of Defence in the Kingdom on that issue. My only knowledge is that that action has had a social impact on Saudis who lived in the border area, because they have had to be moved back. That of course entailed the construction of new homes and other facilities, roads etc., so it has had a social and economic impact on the Kingdom.
On the issue of whether there is someone trying to destabilise the area, there you enter the issue of conspiracy theories. I believe in conspiracies because I used to work in the intelligence department and actually saw them being established and done. Whether there is an intent on the part of the world community to come to us here in the Gulf or the Middle East and destabilise us, the only answer we can give is, if we do not let them, they will not succeed. For destabilisation to operate here, it takes someone from the area to accede to it.
How can you put pressure on Israeli? You can do that as America has done in the past: by cracking the whip. Eisenhower told them to get out of Sinai or else, and they did. During the first Israeli invasion of Lebanon, back in 1978‑79, the American chargé d'affaires went to Prime Minister Begin and told him, ‘President Carter instructed me to tell you that you cannot use American weapons in the invasion of Lebanon.’ Sure enough, they withdrew from Lebanon. Reagan used the same argument with Begin again, in 1982. Bush Senior used credit facilities to get Mr Shamir to attend Madrid. There are examples of how America can pressure Israel.
The European Union can do more than it has been willing to do so far. I see from statistics that the EU is the biggest trading partner of Israel. It can use that issue to pressure Israel. I think the Palestinians can pressure Israel as well, by overcoming their differences. Hamas and Fatah shamefully continue to operate against each other. There are lots one can do to pressure the Israelis. Civil disobedience in the occupied territories can go a long way to undermine Israeli security and legitimacy. These are things that can be done to pressure Israel.
Raghida Dergham, on the grand bargain with Iran, as far as the Kingdom is concerned, knowing whatever is being discussed between the US and other countries with Iran will go a long way to meet Saudi concerns about a grand bargain being struck. What form or exchange of benefits that grand bargain might bring, I do not know. That is for the interlocutors to decide for themselves.
Carl Bildt
There is quite a menu of different challenges. I am sorry that I will not be able to sort out all the issues of the region, with the time limit. I am not quite certain that more time would help either, by the way.
Starting with the question of Roger Cohen and Turkey, my view is very much the same as Roger Cohen’s there. I should add that the question of the accession of Turkey is hotly contested inside the EU at the moment. I do not find that particularly surprising, strange or necessarily wrong, because it is a huge issue. Go back in time and look at that which was once the European Economic Community, starting with six members. Every single enlargement that has happened since then has been controversial and contested but, in retrospect, has been seen as a success. The most controversial enlargement was the one with the UK. There were those who said, ‘These Brits are different. They are not really European. They look in other directions, think in other ways and would only complicate Brussels.’ All of that was of course essentially correct, and it has been a fairly rocky road, but no one in the EU today can think of it without the UK. The global role of the EU would not exist without the UK.
It is much the same with Turkey. Nearly all of the reactions against Turkey that you hear in the debate are valid but, at the same time, I do not think we will be able to think of the global role of the EU some years down the road without Turkey. It will define our relationship with the Muslim world and our global role accordingly. From the EU perspective in the long term, different from America, our relationship with the Muslim world is one of the core issues ahead of us, because it is not only our neighbour on the map but, increasingly, our neighbour across the street back home. The level of integration that is gradually happening between Europe and the Muslim world is phenomenal if you look at it over time. Are the security issues here or back home? Accordingly, the Turkey issue should be seen in that particular context. Debated, contested, controversial and difficult it should be but, without a proper debate, we will not sort it out either.
The lessons from EU integration are difficult and very different, but one would be the importance of institutions. They create their own logic and, accordingly, are important. Secondly, it is the Clinton doctrine: ‘it’s the economy, stupid’. Economic integration drives the integration of societies and, over time, also drives the integration of political cultures. It takes some time, but it is the economy, stupid, and it is institutions, stupid, to take two doctrines from that.
On lessons and how to start regional security structures, this is the start; these things start with intellectual debates among the elites. These conferences are really part of the beginning of a regional security structure, informal as it is.
The core issue of this region is the economic demographic one, but leave that to the side for the time being and look at the Israeli issue, which is clearly another very major issue indeed. I was asked questions about Israeli nuclear weapons. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that they have them. It has never been confirmed, but let us assume that for the sake of discussion. That affects the very particular DNA of the security consciousness of the Israeli nation, which has to do with their particular history – not only the history of the Holocaust during the wartime years, because the origin of this programme goes back to the age of the ‘three no’s of Khartoum’. There was a world before the Arab Peace Initiative. The DNA of nations’ security changes only gradually. I would argue that the reality of the Arab Peace Initiative has not yet sunk in, in Israeli society. More needs to be done from the Arab world as well to reach across to all of Israel to explain that this is a different world with different possibilities, which would gradually change the need for particular weapons and the ultimate weapons that are there. None of this will come quickly or easily, but it clearly needs to be done.
Do we have leverage against Israel? Yes, we might have. Primarily, the Americans have. Prince Turki pointed out the fact of our trade relationships. I am not a great believer in sanctions, because they tend to drive people into corners in ways that are not necessarily productive. I am more in favour of engaging with societies, including the Israeli one, in order to convince them of what is in their own self‑interest, which is peace and being part of the region. If there is anything that is in the interest of Israeli society it is really this, but they need to be convinced that there are not enemies in the rest of the region, but potential friends. It will take some time to engage with them.
The Americans have leverage in terms of their very extensive security relationship, but [it] is a question of whether the Americans are ready to use it. The fact that we now have an American administration that is heavily engaged in the issue is something we have applauded from the European side. We might sometimes think it should be even more engaged, and sometimes think they should be 10‑20% different on certain issues, but it is essentially a good thing. From the European side, we are ready to take a more assertive and active role if this particular American approach does not deliver, but let us hope that it does.
In the meantime, we have had enormous engagement in Palestinian state building. I have said it here before, but the Arab world should know that Europe, not the Arab world, is paying for the Palestinian state. We are the ones paying for the Palestinian state on a day-to-day basis – for the schools, police and institutions. We are the key supporters of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who has done more for the Palestinian cause than perhaps any politician in living memory, because he has proved that a Palestinian state is actually possible, and that has created a completely new dynamic for that particular issue.
Rather than a grand bargain between Iran and the US, in the best of worlds, there is a need for a number of bargains. One that is very much a focus is of course the nuclear issue, but there are a number of others. The Iranian economy is smaller than the Greek economy at the moment. The potential for Iran in the future is much bigger. Membership of the WTO would open up possibilities for Iran to develop that would be phenomenal, but that cannot be delivered by the US alone. It would have to be delivered firstly by the Iranians themselves, but then by everyone included in the region, because this is a multilateral process. Energy and gas issues, where there is a very obvious European interest, are other parts of the bargains that could be possible in the future. There is not the possibility of just one bargain between one partner and Iran. If there is a transformation of the relationship, it will have to be a much broader process including a number of stakeholders, notably and perhaps prominently this region, of which Iran, one way or another, is a part.
Dr John Chipman
Carl, thank you so much for responses of such amazing strategic sweep. I will keep everyone in the room and ask you three times to give a very public expression of thanks. The first time is now for two tremendous presentations, and to congratulate the Manama Dialogue for having chosen these two individuals to close our proceedings today. Thank you very much.
