by Dr. James M. Dorsey
While the Gulf states may have privately celebrated the death of Soleimani, -- they may fear that his killing may have opened a Pandora’s Box
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US military police on patrol in Basra, Iraq, photo by Staff Sgt. Adelita Mead via Wikimedia Commons
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BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,400, January 12, 2020
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The
killing by the US of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani has widened the
opening for a potential restructuring of the Gulf’s security
architecture.
In line with an Iranian plan launched at last year’s UN General Assembly by president Hassan Rouhani that calls for a security architecture that would exclude external forces,
Tehran is arguing that an expulsion of all US troops from the Middle
East would constitute revenge for the killing by the US of Gen. Qassem
Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Quds force.
While it likely would be a drawn-out process,
Iraq’s parliament took a first step in this direction by unanimously
asking the government, in the absence of Kurdish and Sunni Muslim
deputies, to expel US forces from the country.
Ultimately, Iran may get only part of what it wants, at best.
Iraqi PM Adel Abdul Mahdi has dialed back his initial support for parliament’s demand, saying any withdrawal would involve only US combat forces and not training and logistical support for the Iraqi military.
Similarly, Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar are unlikely to expel US forces and bases.
That does not mean the foundation for the Gulf’s
security architecture, which exists under a US defense umbrella
primarily to shield the region’s energy-rich monarchies from Iranian
aggression, is not shifting.
In fact, it was already shifting prior to the killing of Soleimani.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have long supported
President Donald Trump’s maximum pressure campaign against Iran, which
so far has involved the US withdrawal from the 2015 international
agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear program and the imposition of harsh
economic sanctions—but both countries began hedging their bets in the
second half of last year.
While the Gulf states may have privately
celebrated the death of Soleimani, an architect of Iran’s destructive
and self-aggrandizing use of proxies across the Middle East, they may
fear that his killing may have opened a Pandora’s Box that could lead
the region to all-out war.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE called for de-escalation
in the wake of the killing. Khalid bin Salman, the kingdom’s deputy
defense minister and brother of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, traveled to Washington and London to urge restraint.
Ironically, the killing of Soleimani—rather than
strategically pleasing Gulf leaders—may have reinforced their concerns
that they can no longer fully rely on the US as their sole security
guarantor.
If the US’s refusal last year to respond
forcefully to a string of Iranian provocations sparked Gulf doubts,
Soleimani’s killing raises the specter of US overreach when it does.
Notwithstanding Gulf animosity toward Iran and
anti-Shiite sentiment in some Gulf quarters, Trump’s threat to attack
Iranian cultural sites likely reinforced their concern.
The Gulf states’ hedging of their bets does not
mean Rouhani’s proposal is any more attractive to them, but it has led
to direct and indirect diplomacy by the UAE and Saudi Arabia to reduce
tensions with Iran.
Soleimani was killed on the morning he reportedly was to deliver to Abdul Mahdi, the Iraqi PM, an Iranian response to a Saudi initiative to defuse tensions.
While Rouhani’s proposal is a nonstarter, it
contains one element that could prove to have legs: some form of
non-aggression agreement or understanding between the Gulf states and
Iran.
The notion of an understanding on non-aggression
would align with a Russian proposal for an alternative multilateral
arrangement that calls for a regional security conference along the
lines of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Unlike Rouhani’s proposition, the Russian proposal
would involve multiple external powers, including Russia, China, and
India, but—in the knowledge that no country can yet replace the US
militarily—be centered around US military muscle.
The proposal, endorsed by China, could cater to
Trump’s demand for burden-sharing and financial compensation for a
continued US role in security across the globe.
Russian officials and surrogates for the Kremlin
stress that the proposal seeks to capitalize on the US’s mushrooming
predicament in the Middle East but does not mean Russia is willing to
make the kind of commitment that would position it as an alternative to
the US.
Similarly, the nature of China’s participation in last month’s first-ever joint Chinese-Russian-Iranian naval exercise signaled
that closer Chinese military ties with a host of Middle Eastern nations
will not translate into Chinese aspirations for a greater role in
regional security any time soon.
China contributed elements of its anti-piracy
fleet that were already in Somali waters to protect commercial vessels
as well as peacekeeping and humanitarian relief personnel rather than
combat troops.
Though they are keen to hedge their bets, the Gulf
states might want to take their time as they consider a more
multilateral security arrangement that includes but goes beyond the US.
Their problem is that fast-moving and unpredictable developments in the Middle East could change their calculus.
That is also true for Russia and particularly
China, which has long maintained that its security interests in the
region, based on the ability to freeride on the US defense umbrella, are
best served by mutually beneficial economic and trade relations.
That approach could prove increasingly unsustainable.
Said Jiang Xudong, a Middle East scholar at the
Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences: “Economic investment will not solve
all other problems when there are religious and ethnic conflicts.”
Xudong could just as well have included power struggles and regional rivalries in his analysis.
Dr. James M. Dorsey, a non-resident Senior Associate at the BESA Center, is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University and co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture.
Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/soleimani-gulf-security/
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