Barack Obama’s election victory was an international event, not only because the world wanted to see how ready the U.S. was to elect the first African-American to the White House, but also because the election’s outcome will affect international politics for the next four years. What kind of president will Obama be? Questions over the shape of his presidency outnumber the available answers. Obama is not only a new president but also a new player on the political scene. Thus, there are not enough indications about his projected policies. His vice-president, Joe Biden, is more experienced and better known, and will probably be more cautious, particularly when it comes to Iraq. Will Biden’s experience and age outweigh Obama’s inexperience and youth?
Many issues will force themselves onto the new administration’s Middle East agenda, including the “peace process,” Iraq, security in the Gulf region, Iranian influence, and Lebanon. This commentary will only focus on security in the Arabian Gulf in view of Iran’s nuclear program and Obama’s exit strategy from Iraq. It is important to understand that for 30 years the Gulf region has been volatile for two reasons: the imbalance of military power, which is the result of strictly political factors, and the U.S. military presence.
After Britain left the Gulf region in 1971, the military power triangle consisted of Iraq, the Shah’s Iran, and the U.S., which maintained its influence from a distance or by stationing troops nearby. The 1979 Iranian Revolution removed the Shah, a key player, immediately disrupting the power equation. In its first year, the revolution exhausted the Iranian government and antagonized the former Iraqi regime, which feared the spread of the revolution. In addition, the absence of any Gulf states role and the remote presence of the United States all led to the flare up of the Iraq–Iran war, which further exhausted both countries. Soon after the war ended, Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, and the United States adopted a dual containment policy toward Iraq and Iran in order to achieve a balance between them. However, what changed in the power equation is that the United States for the first time had a direct and strong military presence in the Arabian Gulf.
The 2003 U.S. invasion completely removed Iraq from this equation and left behind a bipolar power struggle between the United States and Iran. A constant throughout all these changes in the dynamics of power has been the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries’ military powerlessness. In the case of Saudi Arabia, the lack of military capability is disproportionate to its large population, size, economy, and strategic location. The GCC countries’ lack of military weight and the constant U.S. presence in the region―whether indirectly before 1990 or directly after it―have both created this military imbalance and instability.
The stated objective of the U.S. military presence is to somehow restore balance and fill the void created by the GCC/Saudi absence. However, this presence has created a new set of problems. It has antagonized the peoples of the region, embarrassed their governments, and, furthermore, has remained a short-term solution, as the countries of the region eventually will have to assume their role in maintaining the balance of power in their own environment. Moreover, this presence connects the GCC countries with U.S. political and strategic considerations beyond their control and influence.
Lastly, several regional parties have exploited the U.S. military presence to make political gains at the expense of GCC countries. Even if one discounts all these implications, there remains an undeniable truth—that the U.S. military presence has not prevented the deterioration of security but rather contributed to it. Since 1990, the region has witnessed the Kuwait liberation war, the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the Iraqi civil war, with the prospect of a military confrontation with Iran still looming.
The Iranian nuclear program is the last chapter in this story of the imbalance of power in the region. The U.S. military presence is one of the elements that provoked Iran’s nuclear ambitions. So how differently will the Obama administration deal with this issue? Obama has expressed his support for talks without preconditions in order to persuade Iran to abandon its ambition to acquire nuclear weapons. However, this is unlikely to happen as Iran lacks strategic depth and is surrounded by regional nuclear powers such as Pakistan, India, and Israel, while the United States forms a military belt around it that extends from the Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean to the Incirlik base in Turkey. The fall of the Saddam Hussein regime came as a gift to Iran, as it gained a strategic edge by increasing its influence in Iraq and Lebanon. It is almost impossible for Iran to protect itself from the U.S. military belt and maintain these strategic gains without a nuclear weapon. How will the Obama administration react in this case? Will it drive the region into a new war or will it create a new type of understanding with Tehran by accepting the Iranian nuclear weapon as an inescapable reality?
The Iranian nuclear program is a natural consequence to the region’s power equations. Apparently, Iran is trying to emulate in the Gulf region the strategy of dominance that Israel maintained in the Middle East through its conventional and nuclear arsenals. If the nuclear program has bolstered Iran’s position in negotiations with the West, imagine what it could gain if it obtained a nuclear weapon? The new U.S. administration has to either accept Iran as a nuclear power that will maintain the current power equation in the Arabian Gulf or find itself forced to forge a stronger coalition with Saudi Arabia and Egypt to face the Iranian threat. The Obama administration’s plans remain unclear, due to Obama’s ambiguous position toward Iran, which has not gone beyond agreeing to unconditional talks. Will Iran surprise the United States by relinquishing its uranium enrichment program or will it reveal that it already has a nuclear weapon?
As for the chronic power imbalance in the Gulf region, it is most likely that Obama’s policies will not differ significantly from those of his predecessors, since the power imbalance justifies the strong U.S.military presence. The GCC countries do not see the need to develop their military capabilities to counterbalance Iran even now that Iraq is no longer part of the equation. As a result, an Iranian nuclear weapon will threaten not only the GCC countries alone but also Washington. The transformation of Iran into a nuclear power will change the balance of power in the entire Middle East. One of the consequences will be a serious arms race, at least if Israel does not launch a preemptive strike on the Iranian nuclear plant. It will be, therefore, difficult for the Obama administration to accept Iran as a nuclear state.
This leads one to wonder if there is a connection between Obama’s plans to withdraw troops from Iraq and hold talks with Iran without preconditions. Answering this question will shed light on Obama’s political direction in the region. The Status of Forces Agreement Iraq recently approved may provide the umbrella for a possible total pull-out plan. Obama could use such total pull-out as a bargaining chip in talks with Iran: U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, international security guarantees for Iran, acceptance of the growing Iranian influence in Iraq and of its regional role—all in exchange for a halt to its nuclear program. But Tehran is most likely to reject the deal because these are only short-term guarantees that would make Iran dependent on the U.S. and European arrangements.
The idea of holding talks with Iran is a good and necessary plan; however, the problem is that Iran’s position is clearer than Obama’s stated policy: What is the goal of the talks? What are the alternative policies of the new administration? If holding talks with Iran without preconditions is intended as an incentive for a better deal with Tehran, what is the basis of this deal? Will Obama demand that Iran relinquish its nuclear ambitions? And if so, in exchange for what? Or is the deal based on accepting a nuclear Iran? What is the GCC position in the impending negotiations? The prominence of this issue brings us back to the issue of the imbalance of power in the region. What is GCC countries’ stance on the imbalance of power and the new administration? Will their experience with the neoconservatives change their relationship with Washington?
Khaled al-Dakhil, professor of political sociology at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia.
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