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Iran, Iraq, and the Arab Gulf States
Iran, Iraq, and the Arab Gulf States
Edited by Joseph A. Kechichian
pal grave
* IRAN, IRAQ, AND THE ARAB GULF STATES
©Joseph A. Kechichian, 2001
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2001 978-0-312-29388-8
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Firstpublished2001 byPALGRAVE™, 175 FifthAvenue,NewYork,N.Y.10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Companies and representatives throughout the world.
PALGRAVE is the new global publishing imprint of St. Martin's Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Iran, Iraq, and the Arab Gulf States I edited by Joseph A. Kechichian. p. em.
Papers presented at an international conference coordinated and hosted by Gustave E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, 3-4 May, 2000.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Persian Gulf Region-Politics and government-Congresses. 2. Persian Gulf Region-Foreign relations-Congresses. I. Kechichian, Joseph A. II. Gustave E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies.
DS326 .168 2001 953.05'3-dc21 2001032756
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Westchester Book Composition.
First edition: December 2001 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Transferred to Digital Printing 20 14
ISBN 978-1-349-63445-3 ISBN 978-1-349-63443-9 (eBook)DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-63443-9
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments A Note on Transliteration List <
vi CONTENTS
THE ARAB GULF STATES
10. Domestic Politics in the United Arab Emirates: Social and Economic Poli-cies, 1990-2000, Fatma Al-Sayegh 161
11. Kuwait and Bahrain: The Appeal of Globalization and Internal Constraints, May Seikaly 177
12. Kings And People: Information and Authority in Oman, Qatar, and the Persian Gulf, Dale F. Eickelman 193
PART II-REGIONAL CONCERNS
BORDER DISPUTES
13. Down to the Usual Suspects: Border and Territorial Disputes in the Arabian Peninsula and Persian Gulf at the Millennium, Richard Schofield 213
14. The Kuwait-Iraq Border Problem, Hussein Hassouna 237 15. Yemeni-Saudi Relations Gone Awry, Mohammed A. Zabarah 263
RELATIONS BETWEEN GCC STATES
16. Unity on the Arabian Peninsula, joseph A. Kechichian 281 17. Forging Institutions in the Gulf Arab States,
R. Hrair Dekmejian 303 18. The GCC States: Internal Dynamics and Foreign Policies,
Muhammed Saleh Al-Mu*-r 313
THE GULF STATES AND WESTERN POWERS
19. Constants and Variations in Gulf-British Relations, Gerd Nonneman 325 20. The Impact of U.S. Policy on the Stability of the Gulf States:
A Historian's View, Rosemarie Said Zahlan 351 21. Gulf States' Links with Their Post-Soviet Northern Neighbors,
Theodore Karasik 367
PART III-TRENDS FOR THE FUTURE
22. The UAE Vision for Gulf Security, Sultan bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan 383
23. The Gulf Cooperation Council: Future Trends, Saif bin Hash if AI-Maskery 393
24. The Arabian Gulf At The New Millennium: Security Challenges, Hassan Hamdan Al-Alkim 407
25. Outlook for Iranian-Gulf Relations: Greater Cooperation or Renewed Risk of Conflict?, Shireen T Hunter 427
26. What Makes the Gulf States Endure?,JE. Peterson 451
Bibliography
Index
461
464
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
On 3-4 May 2000, the Gustav E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies at the University of California in Los Angeles hosted an international conference on "Iran, Iraq, and the Arab Gulf States," which formed the basis of this volume. The gathering assembled 25 Middle Eastern, European, and American analysts to provide appraisals of the situation in the Gulf region in early 2000 and identify trends for the next decade.
Both the conference and this book were made possible through the generous support of His Highness Shaykh Zayed bin Sultan AI Nahyan, the president of the United Arab Emirates. Much like his contribution on "Gulf Security: The View from Abu Dhabi," which was published in A Century in Thirty Years: Shaykh Zayed and the United Arab Emirates, (Washington, D.C.: Middle East Policy Council, 2000), that of his son, Shaykh Sultan bin Zayed AI Nahyan, the deputy prime minister of the UAE, adds value to it by contributing yet another comprehensive essay on the critical subject of Gulf security. To my knowledge, these two essays are the only ones written by high-ranking Gulf officials, to clarify evolving perspectives on regional security affairs. I thank His Highness for his sustained efforts and foresight.
His Excellency Shaykh Saifbin Hashil Al-Maskery, the former assistant secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, graciously agreed to travel from Muscat to Los Angeles to participate in the conference and write a paper that highlights the genuine search for peaceful resolution of conflicts within the region. By doing so, he joins several Gulf diplomats and scholars who seek to reverse the complacency trend by sharing their unique perspectives with a wider audience.
Several individuals at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in Abu Dhabi, including His Excellency Sultan bin Omeir AI Mashgouni and his assistant office director, Khalifah bin Sabha AI Qubaisi, were gracious with their time and hospitality. Mr. Muhammad Khalifah, the multitalented executive director of the Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-Up, was equally cordial. To them, and many others, I owe a special debt of gratitude.
Vlll ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
At UCLA, Professors Irene A. Bierman and Afaf Lutfi Al-Sayyid Marsot, respectively the director and the assistant director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies, welcomed and supported me at the university between the fall of 1998 and the spring of2001. Both recognized the conference's value when I first discussed it with them in the fall of 1999. The Center team, including Jonathan Friedlander, Lisette Hurtado Mora, and Diane James, coordinated the conference and assisted in hosting 25 scholars from 14 countries. I thank all of them for their assistance in what was truly a gargantuan task.
To Angelica-my inspiration-! owe deep gratitude for accepting her father's many absences from home.
The Palgrave team performed in its usual professional practice. Editors Karen Wolny and Ella Pearce shepherded the manuscript through an excessively long "blind referee" process. Donna Cherry, Rick Delaney, Sabahat Chaudhary, Meredith Howard, Alan Bradshaw, and Sonia Wilson proved to be devoted to this project as they did their level best to make-up some of the lost time. Rodney Williams copy-edited our text-with its multi-cultural and multi-linguistic twists-with his usual skill. These are true professionals and it is a pleasure to work with such a team.
Last, but not least, I thank my colleagues who first accepted the invitation to participate in the conference, wrote superb original papers, answered my repeated queries, and considered many of my emendations. This collective book is testament that each and every one has added value.
A NOTE ON
TRANSLITERATION
A modified version of the Library of Congress transliteration system has been adopted throughout the book. In rendering Arabic words and names, however, and because several authors use various spellings, I relied on the style used by the International Journal of Middle East Studies. Thus a name that is commonly rendered in English, for example Mohammed, becomes Muhammad, and Mecca becomes Makkah. Whenever known, I used the common English spellings for proper names, as well as for names of countries. Thus Fahd rather than Fahad (although the latter is used if the individual writes his name with that spelling) and Oman rather than 'Uman. Although special care was devoted to standardize the spellings of as many transliterated words as possible, there are--inevitably-a few inconsistencies which, I trust, readers will understand. For practical purposes, all diacritical marks for long vowels and velarized consonants have been eliminated. Arabic and Persian speakers will know the correct reference for the transliterated words throughout the text.
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L I S T OF TABLES,
FIGURES AND MAPS
TABLES 9, 1 Saudi Arabia: Rates of Growth, 1964-1998, 9.2 Saudi Arabia: Economic Structure, 1970-1998. 9.3 Saudi Arabia: Public Sector Budget, 1979-1998. 9.4 Saudi Arabia: Influence of Public Expenditure on the Private Sector
Economy. 9.5 Saudi Arabia: Summary of Results.
19.1 UK Imports from the Gulf States, 1991-1999 (in£ Million). 19.2 UK Visible Non-Defense Exports to the Gulf States, 1991-1999, (in£
Million). 19.3 UK Visible Non-Arms Exports to the GulfStates, by Broad Commodity
Group, 1998 (in £ Million). 19.4 Recent And CurrentArms Contracts UK-GCC. 25.1 Persian Gulf: Size of Countries. 25.2 Persian Gulf: Population of Countries. 25.3 Persian Gulf: Ethnic Composition of Non-Nationals in Percentages. 25.4 Persian Gulf: Proven Oil Reserves.
FIGURES 9.1 Saudi Arabia: Evolution of the Non-Oil Economy, 1964-. 9.2 Development Model 1: Saudi Arabian Development during the Oil
Boom Years. 9.3 Development during the Post-Oil Boom Years: Pessimistic Assessment. 9.4 Development during the Post-Oil Boom Years: Optimistic Assessment. 9.5 Saudi Arabia: Future Virtuous Cycle.
12.1 Faisal al-Kassim Broadcasting from Al-Jazeera. 12.2 Palestinian News Reporting.
LIST OF TABLES, fiGURES AND MAPS
.MAPS 13.1 Territorial and Maritime Boundaries in the GulfRegion. 13.2 Saudi-Yemeni Boundary. 13.3 Bahrain Boundary Issues. 14.1 Kuwait-Iraq Border.
xi
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CONTRIBUTORS
Dr. Hassan Hamdan AL-ALKIM is professor of political science at the UAE University in Al-Ain, where he has taught since 1986. He spent 1991 as a visiting professor at the University of California at Los Angeles (on a Fulbright scholarship) and 1992-93 at the University of London. He earned his B.A. from Seattle University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Exeter. Dr. Al-Alkim is a member of numerous editorial boards as well as academic associations such as the Royal Institute for International Affairs and the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. His books in English include The CCC States in an Unstable World: Foreign Policy Dilemmas of Small States, (London: Saqi Books, 1994) and The Foreign Policy <if the United Arab Emirates (London: Saqi Books, 1989).
Dr. Shaul BAKHASH is Clarence Robinson Professor of History at George Mason University, where he teaches Iranian and modern Middle Eastern history. Currently he is a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C. He is the author of Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution, Iran: Monarchy, Bureaucracy and Reform under the Qajars, 1858-1896, and other publications. He writes frequently for The New York Review <if Books and has published numerous articles in scholarly books and journals, most recently in Foreign Policy and The Journal <if Democracy. His op-ed pieces have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications. Until1979, he worked as a journalist in Iran writing for Kayhan International and reporting from Iran, at various times, for The Economist, The Times, and The Financial Times.
Dr. R. Hrair DEKMEJIAN teaches political science at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Earlier, he taught at the State University of New York at Binghamton; Columbia; and the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of several books, most recently Troubled Waters: Geopolitics <if the Caspian Region (co-authored with Hovann I. Simonian, I. B. Tauris, 2001), Islam
CONTRIBUTORS Xlll
in Revolution (Syracuse University Press, 1995), Patterns cif Political Leadership (SUNY Press, 1975), and Egypt Under Nasser: A Study in Political Dynamics (SUNY Press, 1971).
Dr. Dale F. EICKELMAN is Ralph and Richard Lazarus Professor of Anthropology and Human Relations and chair of the Department of Anthropology at Dartmouth College. Since 1968 he has worked extensively in the Middle East, including long-term field research in Morocco and the Sultanate of Oman. His publications include Moroccan Islam (1976); The Middle East and CentralAsia:AnAnthropologicalApproach (1981; 3rd ed., 1998); Knowledge and Power in Morocco (1985); Muslim Travellers: Pilgrimage, Migration and the Religious Imagination (coedited with James Piscatori, 1990); Russia's Muslim Frontiers: New Directions in Cross-Cultural Analysis (edited, 1993); Muslim Politics, co-authored with James Piscatori (1996); New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere (coedited with Jon Anderson, 1999); and numerous scholarly articles and contributions to edited books. He was a 197 6-1977 member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, 1991 President of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, a 1992 Guggenheim Fellow, a 1996-1997 fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and a 2000-2001 fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.
Dr. Ahmed S. HASHIM is a defense analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses in Washington, D.C. He earned a doctorate in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991, and was a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, as well as a research analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. In 1997, he co-authored (with Anthony Cordesman) Iraq: Sanctions and Beyond, and Iran: Beyond Dual Containment, both published by Westview Press. While at the IISS, he published, among others, The Crisis cif the Iranian State: Domestic, Foreign and Security Policies in Post-Khomeini Iran (Adelphi Paper number 296, 1995).
Ambassador Hussein HASSOUNA is the permanent representative of the League of Arab States to the United Nations. Before assuming his current post in 1997, he was assistant minister of foreign affairs of Egypt for international legal affairs and treaties (1996-1997) and ambassador of Egypt to Morocco (1992-1996) and to Yugoslavia (1989-1992). Over the years, he filled a variety of diplomatic posts in Cairo, Paris, Washington, D.C., and New York. Ambassador Hassouna earned a doctorate in international law from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, where he wrote a dissertation on the Iraq-Kuwait border dispute, and published, among others, The League cif Arab States and Regional Disputes:A Study cifMiddle East Conflicts (Oceana, 1975).
Dr. Shireen T. HUNTER is the director of the Islamic Studies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. She previously served as director of the Mediterranean Studies program with the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels. Dr. Hunter is the author of sev-
xiv CONTRIBUTORS
eral books, including The Future of Islam and the West: Clash of Civilization or Peaciful Coexistence? (CSIS/Praeger, 1998), Central Asia Since Independence (CSIS/Praeger, 1996), and The Transcaucasus in Transition: Nation-Building and Conflict (CSIS, 1994). Her articles have appeared in leading journals such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Current History, the Middle East Journal, Security Dialogue, the International Spectator, Relazioni Internazionali, Third World Quarterly, and the SAIS Review, as well as prominent newspapers including the Los Angeles Times and the Christian Science Monitor. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from the Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva and an M.A. from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Dr. Mark N. KATZ is professor of government and politics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He received a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982. His books include Russia and Arabia: Soviet Foreign Policy toward the Arabian Peninsula (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves (St. Martin's Press, 1997), and Revolution: International Dimensions, editor, (Palgrave, 2001). During 1999-2000, he was president of the National Capital Area Political Science Association.
Dr. Theodore W. KARASIK is a resident consultant at RAND in Santa Monica and is Editor, Russia and Eurasia Armed Forces Review, GulfBreeze:Acadernic International Press. He received a doctorate in history from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is a frequent contributor to the Central Asia-Caucasus Monitor, Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Karasik has thirteen years work experience in Russian, Caucasian and Middle Eastern affairs for the RAND Corporation. His RAND publications include "Foreign and Security Policy Decision-making Under Yeltsin," RAND, MR -831-0SD, 1997 (co-authored with F. Stephen Larrabee). Dr. Karasik has also worked on Air Force and Army projects exploring air power and MOUT including "Organizing, Training and Equipping the Air Force for Crises and Lesser Conflicts," MR-626-AF, 1995 (co-authored with Carl H. Builder). Other publications include "Chechnya: A Glimpse ofFuture Conflict?," Studies in Conflict &Terrorism, withJohnArquilla, "Putin and Shoigu: Reversing Russia's Decline, Demokratizatsiia, Summer 2000, and "The Crisis in Azerbaijan: How Clans Influence the Politics of an Emerging Republic," Middle East Journal, Summer 1995 (with Joseph Kechichian).
Dr. Joseph A. KECHICHIAN is a fellow at UCLA's Gustav E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies, and the CEO of Kechichian & Associates, LLC, a consulting partnership that provides analysis on the Arabian/Persian Gulf region, specializing in the domestic and regional concerns of Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. He received a doctorate in Foreign Affairs from the University ofVirginia in 1985, where he also taught (1986-1988), and assumed the assistant deanship in international studies (1988-1989). In the summer of 1989, Dr. Kechichian was a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University (under the U.S. State Department Title VIII program). Between 1990 and 1996, he was an associate
CONTRIBUTORS XV
political scientist at the Santa Monica-based RAND Corporation and a lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles. He published Succession in Saudi Arabia (New York: Palgrave, 2001) and Oman and the World: The Emergence if an Independent Foreign Policy (RAND, 1995), and edited A Century in Thirty Years: Shaykh Zayed and the United Arab Emirates (Middle East Policy Council, 2000). He is currently completing a study tentatively titled The UAE and the World. Dr. Kechichian received a RAND President's Award for Research Excellence in January 1995. A frequent traveler to the Gulf region, he is fluent in Arabic, Armenian, English, French, Italian, and Turkish, and is learning Persian.
Dr. Laith KUBBA was born and raised in Baghdad, Iraq. He had his bachelor's degree from the University ofBaghdad (1976) and his Ph.D. from the University of Wales, in the United Kingdom (1982). Dr Kubba was an active participant in a number of Iraqi organizations. He served on the Iraqi Joint Action Committee, the first broad alliance of the Iraqi opposition. He coordinated the INC meeting in Vienna and was a spokesman for the organization in 1992. Following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Dr. Kubba took a high public profile and participated in numerous debates and media shows on Iraq. Also, he was a columnist for two Arabic weekly magazines and served on the boards of regional institutions including the Iraq Foundation, the Arab Organization for Human Rights, and the International Forum for Islamic Dialogue. For the period 1993-1998, he worked for AI Khoei Foundation in London as their director of international relations. At present, he is the senior program officer for the Middle East at the National Endowment for Democracy, in Washington D.C.
Dr. Robert E. LOONEY is a professor of national security studies at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He is the author of several studies including, The Economic Development if Iran: A Recent Survey With Predictions to 1981 (Praeger, 1973), Iran at the End of the Century: An Hegelian Forecast (Lexington Books, 1977), A Development Strategy for Iran (Praeger, 1977), Saudi Arabia's Growth Potential (Lexington Books, 1981), Economic Origins of the Iranian Revolution (Pergamon, 1982), Third World Military Expenditures and Arms Production (Macmillan, 1988), Economic Development in Saudi Arabia: Consequences if the Oil Price Decline (]AI Press, 1990), The Economic Causes and Consequences if Difense Expenditures in the Middle East and South Asia (with David Winterford, Westivew Press, 1994), Manpower Policies and Development in the Arab Gulf Region (Praeger, 1994), Industrialization in the Arabian Gulf (]AI Press, 1994), The Economics if Third World Difense Expenditures (]AI Press, 1995), and The Pakistani Economy: Economic Growth and Structural Riform (Praeger, 1997).
His Excellency Saif bin Hashil AL-MASKERY is the head of the Oman Consultancy Group in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. From 1987 to 1993, he was assistant secretary-general for political affairs of the Riyadh-based Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), when the Persian Gulf region was mired in two major wars. Earlier, he served as ambassador and permanent representative of the Sultanate of Oman to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.
XVI CONTRIBUTORS
Dr. Muhammed Saleh AL-MUSFIR is a senior associate at the ministry of foreign affairs in the State of Qatar. He started his diplomatic career as acting council general in Pakistan (1975-1976), and acting cultural attache in London (1976-1978), before becoming chancellor (1978-1983) and deputy to the permanent representative (1984-1986), of the United Arab Emirates delegation at the United Nations in New York. Between 1999 and 2001, he was a visiting professor at Yarmouk University in Jordan and, from 1986 to 1999, professor of political science at the University of Qatar in Doha. In 1995, he assumed the editorship of the Doha daily Al-Rayah, for a period of two years. A frequent participant on television programs throughout the Arab world, Dr. Al-Musfir writes a regular political column in various Gulf and Arab newspapers, and has published Regional Organizations: Backgrounds if origins and principles (National Press, 1987), United Nations Organization: origins and principles (Ali Bin Ali Press, 1996), The Arabs, the West and Globalization (Ali Bin Ali Press, 1999 [all in Arabic]). He earned his doctorate in political science from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1984.
His Highness Shaykh Sultan Bin Zayed AL NAHY AN is the deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, a position he has held since November 1990. His primary responsibilities include the day-to-day operations of the federal government. In addition, as the third-highest-ranking member of the ruling family, His Highness conducts special assignments on behalf of the state--he represented the UAE at the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations in New York in 1995. Shaykh Sultan graduated from Sandhurst Academy in the United Kingdom in 1972 and served in both the Abu Dhabi (1973-78) and UAE armed forces. After a distinguished career that spanned a decade, His Highness was appointed general commander of the armed forces (1978-82). In addition to his federal position, Shaykh Sultan is the chairman of the Abu Dhabi Public Works Department, responsible for the Emirate's infrastructure, as well as the vice-chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, the highest governing body in the Emirate. His Highness also serves on the Supreme Petroleum Council and is the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Abu Dhabi Fund for Arab Economic Development, of the Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-Up, and of the UAE National Heritage Council. A frequent participant in various cultural festivities in the UAE, Shaykh Sultan is interested in world history and Arab civilization.
Dr. Gerd NONNEMAN is Reader in International Relations and Middle East Politics at Lancaster University. He is also the Executive Director of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES). Born in Flanders and educated at Ghent University, Belgium, in oriental philology (Arabic) as well as development studies, he worked in Iraq for a number of years during the 1980s, before returning to academia teaching Middle East politics and political economy at Manchester and Exeter universities. After a spell as visiting professor at the International University of Japan, he joined the faculty at Lancaster
CONTRIBUTORS xvii
in 1993. His publications include: Political and Economic Liberalisation: Dynamics and Linkages in Comparative Perspective (editor, Lynne Rienner, 1996), Muslim Communities in the New Europe (editor, Ithaca Press, 1997), Development, Administration and Aid in the Middle East (Routledge, 1988), War and Peace in the Gulf: Domestic Politics and Regional Relations into the 1990s (with A. Ehteshami, Ithaca Press, 1986), Yemen: The Search for development, Stability and Unity, 1960s-1990s (Hurst Publishers, 2000), and The Political Economy of Iraqi-Kuwaiti Relations (forthcoming).
Dr. Gwenn OKRUHLIK is an Assistant Professor of political science at the University of Arkansas. She earned a doctorate in government from the University of Texas at Austin in 1992 and was the first female political scientist to do fieldwork in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1989-1990 on a Fulbright doctoral grant. Her publications include "Rentier Wealth, Unruly Law and the Rise of Opposition: The Political Economy of Oil States" (Comparative Politics); "Excluded Essentials: Ethnicity, Oil and Citizenship in Saudi Arabia" (in The Global Color Line: Racial and Ethnic Inequality and Struggle From a Global Perspective), "The Politics of Border Disputes in the Arabian Peninsula" (International ]ournaQ, "National Autonomy, Labor Migration and Political Crisis: Yemen and Saudi Arabia (Middle East ]ournaQ and "From Imagined Scholarship to Gendered Discourse: Bringing the Peninsula in from the Periphery" (Middle East Report). Her current research projects focus on gender and civic mythology; Islamist social movements; meanings of citizenship in Saudi Arabia, alternative historic narratives, and migrant labor in the Peninsula.
Dr. Andrew PARASILITI is director of the Middle East Initiative at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and a specialist on Iraq and Gulf security issues. From 1996-1999, he was director of programs at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., where he directed the institute's programs and research projects dealing with Gulf energy security, Iraq, and Iran. Dr. Parasiliti has conducted field research and interviews in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Jordan, as well as other countries throughout the Middle East. He is a regular contributor to scholarly publications and the popular press about developments in Iraq. Recent publications include "US Policy on Iraq: A Dangerous Drift?" (with Jon B. Alterman), in Middle East Economic Survey (18 October 1999); and "Political Risk in Iraq," in Middle East Economic Survey (24 May 1999). He received a Ph.D. from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies,Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. John E. PETERSON is a historian and author based in Tucson, Arizona. After receiving his doctorate from Johns Hopkins SAIS, he was a research analyst at the Library of Congress and then taught at Bowdoin, William and Mary, the University of Pennsylvania, and Portland State before joining the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for Security and Defense of the Sultanate of Oman. His principal publications include Oman in the Twentieth Century, 1978; Yemen: The
XV til CONTRII3UTORS
Search for a Modern State, 1982; Difending Arabia, 1986; The Arab Gulf States: Steps Toward Political Participation, 1988; Historical Dictionary of Saudi Arabia, 1993, and Difending Oman: A History if the Sultan's Armed Forces (forthcoming).
Dr. Olivier ROY studied philosophy and oriental languages (Persian), obtained an agd~gation de philosophie as well as a Ph.D. in political science. He is presently a senior researcher at CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research) and a consultant for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Olivier Roy was also a consultant for UNOCA (United Nations Office of the Coordinator for Afghanistan) in 1988, and special envoy for the OSCE in Tajikistan (August-December 1993), then head of OSCE's Mission for Tajikistan (FebruaryNovember 1994). He completed fieldwork throughout the Middle East and Central Asia. His main publications are Islam and Resistance in Ajghanistan (Cambridge University Press, seconded., 1990 [translated from the French]), The Failure if Political Islam (Harvard University Press, 1994, [translation of L'Echec de l' Islam politique, Le Seuil, 1992]), Genealogie de l'islamisme (Hachette, 1995), Iran: comment sortir d'une revolution religieuse (with Farhad Khosrokhavar, Le Seuil, 1999), Vers un islam europeen (Editions Esprit, 1999), and The New Central Asia: The Fabrication of Nations (1. B. Tauris, 2000).
Dr. Fatma AL-SA YEGH is an associate professor in the Department of History at the UAE University at Al-Ain, where she joined the faculty as an assistant professor in 1990. Her areas of specialization are the history of the UAE, the societies of the Gulf countries, and women's studies. She earned her bachelor's degree in modern history from Kuwait University, her M.A. from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and her Ph.D. from Essex University (1989). She was the recipient of a Fulbright research grant for the 1993-94 academic year. Dr. Al-Sayegh received the Shaykh Rashid bin Said Award for Educational and Scientific Achievement in 1991 and the al-Owais Award for the best book about the UAE in 1996: The United Arab Emirates and the British Air Route to the East [in Arabic]. She is also the author of The United Arab Emirates from Tribalism to Statehood (1997) [in Arabic].
Dr. Richard SCHOFIELD is convenor of the MAin International Boundary Studies and deputy director of the Geopolitics and International Boundaries Research Centre at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He is also a senior officer of the British Society of Middle Eastern Studies and a founding editor of Geopolitics (formerly Geopolitics and International Boundaries), the triannualjournal published by Frank Cass. He is the author of several publications, including Evolution cif the Shatt al-Arab Boundary Dispute, 1986; Kuwait and Iraq: Historical Claims and Territorial Disputes, 1991 [2nd ed., 1993]; and Unfinished Business:Abu Musa, the Tunbs, Iran and the UAE (forthcoming). He was editor of Territorial Foundations if the Gulf States, 1994, as well as of numerous documentary collections on Arabian/Persian Gulf boundaries and associated territorial questions. In addition, he has penned numerous articles on these subjects in academic journals and edited collections. He is currently
CONTRIBUTORS xix
working on three major research projects: writing a commissioned work on the political economy of territory and resources in the Middle East, compiling an atlas of Arabian boundary disputes, and constructing a bibliographical database on Iran's northern borderlands with the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Dr. May SEIKALY is associate professor of history at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. She earned a doctorate in modern Middle East socioeconomic history from Oxford University in 1983. Her publications include: HAIFA: Traniformation of an Arab Society: 1918-19 3 9 (I. B. Tauris, 199 5, 2000, [with an Arabic translation in 1997]), "Women and Socio-Political Change in Bahrain," International Journal of Middle East Studies (1994), "Women and Religion in Bahrain: An Emerging Identity," in John Esposito and Yvonne Haddad (eds.), Islam, Gender and Social Change (Oxford University Press, 1997), "Bahraini Women in Formal and Informal Groups: The Politics of Identification," in Dawn Chatty and Annika Rabo (eds.), Organizing Women: Formal and Informal Women's Groups in the Middle East (Berg, 1997), "Living with the Memory: Legitimacy, Justice and Nationhood," in Naim Ateek and Michael Prior (eds.), Holy Land-Hallow Jubilee (Fox Publishers, 1999), "Attachment and Identity: The Palestinian Community of Detroit," in Michael Suleiman (ed.), Arabs in America: Building a New Future, (Temple University Press, 1999), and "Haifa at the Crossroads: An outpost of the new World Order," in Leila Fawaz (ed.), European Modernity and Cultural Difference From the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean 1890-1920 (Columbia University Press, 2001).
Dr. Joyce N. WILEY is an associate professor of government and international studies at the University of South Carolina, Spartanburg. She earned a doctorate in international studies from the University of South Carolina at Columbia in 1988. She has taught in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and traveled extensively throughout the Middle East. Her research interests are Islamic political movements and Iraqi politics. In 1992, she published The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi 'as (Lynne Rienner Publishers) and contributed, among others, various essays to the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World (on Ayatollah Hakim and Ayatollah Khoi in particular). Her chapter on the 'alima Bint al-Huda was published in The Most Learned of the Shi'a (2001).
Dr. Mohammed A. ZABARAH is a professor of political science at the University of Yemen in Sanaa. He was the Dean of the Faculty of Commerce and Economics (1991-1993), and chairman of the political science department on two occasions. Before going to Sanaa University, he taught at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He is the author of Yemen: Traditionalism vs. Modernity (Praeger, 1992).
Dr. Rosemarie Said ZAHLAN is a historian, author, and consultant. Her first publication on the Gulf was in 1970, examining the 1938 Reform Movement in Dubai. Her books include The Origins of the United Arab Emirates: A Political and Social History of the Trucial States (Macmillan and St. Martin's Press,
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1978), The Creation of Qatar (Croom Helm and Barnes and Noble, 1979), and The Making cf the Modern Gulf States: Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman (Unwin Hyman, 1989, 1998). As an academic and consultant, she has also contributed to the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Oxford Analytica, Middle East Economic Digest, Middle East Review, South Magazine, the BBC World Service, and others.
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PREFACE
Two decades after the epoch-making 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and an eight-year-long (1980--1988) protracted war between Iran and Iraq, and a decade after the historic War for Kuwait (1991), the Persian Gulf region remains mired in conflict and uncertainty. Few doubt the importance of the area to its inhabitants as well as to the economic welfare of industrialized societies. Yet, despite momentous-even cataclysmic-events and unabated concerns, few can forecast that the area will be free of additional convulsions.
For decades, the entire region was pigeonholed in terms of how "vital" it was and, within the East-West contest for world hegemony, how critical to the survival of a certain "way oflife." In the event, and despite the Christmas Eve 1979 invasion-and decade-long occupation-of Afghanistan, the Soviet Union failed to gain a foothold in the area. Moscow's lukewarm relations with Iraq and the People's Democratic Republic ofYemen (PDRY) did not get the Soviets what earlier tsarist intentions had long craved. Both Iraq and the PDRY fared poorly too. Western powers, led first by the United Kingdom and later by the United States, emerged as the dominant outside forces that shaped the course of events. Washington weathered the repercussions of the Iranian Revolution-especially the humiliating 444-day-long hostage crisis-strengthened its presence on the Arabian Peninsula, and fought a regional hegemon under a United Nationssanctioned intervention. It deployed more than half a million troops and a unique armada to ensure, inter alia, the territorial integrity of Kuwait and the sovereignty of the conservative Arab Gulf monarchies. Although the United States neutralized putative Iranian and Iraqi capabilities, it failed to accelerate political changes-especially of the regime variety- in both countries and, in early 2001 , was still confronted by political forces deemed too hostile for comfort.
To be sure, Iran and Iraq opposed the perceived American hegemony throughout the Persian Gulf region, even if Teheran longed for improved relations and Baghdad yearned for a speedy departure. Many Iranians remained apprehensive of American intentions notwithstanding limited but positive contacts. Many Arabs, including in the Gulf Cooperation Council states, harbored uneasiness as
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well. A majority rejected the strangulation of the Iraqi population but failed to persuade their Western allies to lift UN-imposed economic sanctions on Baghdad. Most aimed to find a balance among internal, regional, and international commitments, to ensure their survival. Both Iranians and Arabs aimed to regain the upper hand in determining their respective destinies even if more powerful forces shaped them. In the end, all feared the spillover effects of regional instability, a burgeoning arms race, and dramatic economic and social changes. Indeed, they were all confronted by new paradigms that challenged traditional interpretations and threatened to alter the body politic of each regime.
Against this background, what are the political, military, religious, and socioeconomic trends for Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen? Will internal, regional, and international tensions threaten existing regimes, or will the latter survive growing pressure points? Will Gulf states' incredible endurance capabilities be altered? Will the next decade witness fundamental changes that could destabilize the Persian Gulf, or will new institutions equip each state with the wherewithal to function and grow more effectively?
These are the fundamental questions and issues that the following 26 contributions attempt to answer and analyze. They articulate American, European, and Middle Eastern perspectives to widen the ongoing debate among scholars and decision makers. Indeed, by discussing issues from several perspectives, these essays aim to elucidate rather than sermonize.
The integrated papers that follow are divided into three parts. Part One provides an overview of Gulf states' internal concerns-focusing on political, military, economic, religious, and social matters. While the focus of the first papers are on Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the smaller Gulf states, these are not intended as country profiles. Rather, they purport to analyze currents and trends, to alert the reader to fundamental changes. Part Two offers detailed examinations of three of the most significant issues that presently affect the area. Despite recent progress on several fronts, including a significant accord between Bahrain and Qatar as well as intense negotiations between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, thorny border disputes are analyzed to identify significant trends for future political behavior. Regional issues, including institution-building measures, are also analyzed to identify groundbreaking sociopolitical changes throughout the region. Finally, key relations with Britain, the United States, and Russia are assessed, to weigh their repercussions both for indigenous leaders as well as for their Western counterparts. Part Three consists of overview essays of the Gulf region in terms of the changing foreign policy environment. They provide fresh appraisals of Gulf security and conflict resolution.
As the bulk of these essays were written almost a year before the book appeared in print, what follows may well have been overtaken by time. Nevertheless, it is fully expected that the underlying analyses and interpretations will continue to serve useful purposes, to encourage debate among scholars, and to provide policymakers with concrete reference points.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
ACC ADIA AIPAC AMU APC APOC A SEAN BPD CDLR DRY ECO ESDI EU FLOSY FNC GCC GDP GNP GPC IAEA ICJ ICP ILSA IMF INC IRGC
IRNA ISA LAS
Arab Cooperation Council Abu Dhabi Investment Authority American Israel Public Affairs Committee Arab Maghreb Union Armored Personnel Carrier Anglo-Persian Oil Company Association of South East Asian Nations Barrels Per Day Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights Democratic Republic ofYemen Economic Cooperation Organization European Security and Defense Identity European Union Front for the Liberation of South Yemen Federal National Council [UAE] Gulf Cooperation Council Gross Domestic Product Gross National Product General People's Congress [Yemen] International Atomic Energy Agency International Court ofJustice Iraqi Communist Party Iran-Libya Sanctions Act International Monetary Fund Iraqi National Congress Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps [Pasdaran-e Engelabe-e Islami] Islamic Republic News Agency [Iran] Internal Security Agreement [of GCC] League of Arab States
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LNG LSY MBPD MBT NATO NDF NIS NLF NPT OIC OPEC PDRY PLO RCC RUSI SAVAK
sec SCIRI UAE UNDP UNIKBDC UNMOVIC
UNSCOM USSR WEU WMD WTO YAR YSP
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Liquefied Natural Gas League of the Sons of Yemen Million Barrels Per Day Main Battle Tanks North Atlantic Treaty Organization National Democratic Front [Yemen] New Independent States [former Soviet Union] National Liberation Front [Yemen] Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Organization of Islamic Conference Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries People's Democratic Republic ofYemen Palestine Liberation Organization Revolutionary Command Council [Iraq] Royal United Services Institute National Organization of Information and Security [Sazeman-e Amniyat-e va Ettela 'at Keshvar] State Consultative Council [Oman] Supreme Council of the Islamic Resistance in Iran United Arab Emirates United Nations Development Program United Nations Iraq-Kuwait Boundary Demarcation Commission United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission United Nations Special Commission [for Iraq] Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Western European Union Weapons of Mass Destruction World Trade Organization Yemen Arab Republic Yemen Socialist Party