Gulf States Archive

Tucked just below the surface of the ongoing Saudi- and Emirati-led blockade of Qatar lies a seemingly banal rationale for the dramatic standoff: the future of tourism in the Gulf. When vacationers think of sun, luxury or both, which futuristic city will they think of: Doha or Dubai? As part of their post-oil economic strategies, Gulf states have doubled down on tourism, none more so than the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. The skylines of Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Doha all glitter with ever newer, ever more luxurious high-rise hotels, as Emirati and Qatari development plans pin their hopes on […]

Like the rest of the world, Turkey was blindsided by the sudden decision by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to cut all diplomatic, trade and transportation ties with Qatar earlier this month. Ankara is now scrambling to respond coherently to this new headache over Qatar, a state with which it has deepened ties in recent years. This is a strategic dilemma of the first degree for Turkey. If Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fails to stand by the only true Arab ally he has left, he could lose all semblance of influence in the Arab world. […]

Across Africa, governments have reacted swiftly to the rift between Saudi Arabia, backed by allied states, and Qatar, with a number of countries signaling their support for Riyadh. West Africa is no exception. Mauritania has announced it is cutting ties with Qatar, while Senegal and Niger have recalled their ambassadors in Doha. Such positions reflect Saudi Arabia’s strong standing in the region despite Qatar’s active diplomacy in recent years. In an email interview, Rahmane Idrissa, a political scientist currently based at the University of Gottingen in Germany and the author of “The Politics of Islam in the Sahel,” explains how […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss the contrasting fortunes of British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron, and the implications of the British and French elections for the EU. For the Report, Laura Kasinof talks with Peter Dörrie about how, amid the chaos of Yemen’s ongoing crisis, former Yemeni President Ali Adullah Saleh has maneuvered himself back into a position of power. If you’d like to sign up for the beta version of WPR’s Africa-only subscription, you can do so here. It’s free for the first two […]

A ransom payment for a kidnapped royal hunting party. Hacking claims and “fake news.” A blockade that U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to take credit for, hours after his secretary of state called for it to be lifted. “The biggest bovine airlift in history.” The escalating rift between Qatar, the tiny Gulf state with a big foreign policy agenda, and its neighbors, led by Saudi Arabia, already had all the makings of a geopolitical soap opera. And the plot keeps thickening. On Monday, Qatari shipping lines were rerouted to Oman, bypassing their usual ports in the United Arab Emirates, which […]

The dramatic crisis pitting tiny, oil-wealthy Qatar against regional powers Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt raises the question of the survivability of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the regional organization of six Gulf states. Most likely, Qatar will make some concessions to return to the fold. But the GCC will end up weaker as a result, and Riyadh’s ambition to push for deeper unity of effort among the six states will not be realized. The political assault against Qatar has seen Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other states break diplomatic ties with Doha, as well as close their […]

In March, to mark—and taunt—the two-year anniversary of the military intervention launched by Saudi Arabia in northern Yemen, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh marched down a major thoroughfare in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, surrounded by throngs of adoring supporters. Bodyguards cleared his path as a crowd of tens of thousands cheered him on. The Sanaanis, as the capital’s residents are called, were overjoyed to catch sight of the man they consider their leader—even though he was forced to step down as president five years prior. Saleh delivered a speech to the crowd in his clipped northern accent, triumphantly declaring that […]

Americans generally don’t think much about where their nation’s military bases are located around the world, but they probably should. For most of the past century, a pillar of U.S. strategy has been to address threats and defeat enemies as far away from the homeland as possible. This makes security partnerships and forward presence important. And that requires bases. During the Cold War, stationing military forces abroad was a sign of commitment to allies, assuring them that America would be there if they were attacked. This helped deter aggressors. If deterrence failed, the thinking went, foreign bases would make it […]

Since the collapse of world oil prices in 2014, the wealthy Arab monarchies in the Persian Gulf have all faced difficult times, but especially Oman. Last month, things got even worse when Standard & Poor’s downgraded Oman’s credit rating to junk status over concerns with the country’s budget and revenue prospects as oil prices stay low. After recording average budgetary surpluses of 9.7 percent of GDP in the 2000s, Oman has seen fiscal deficits of 1.1 percent of GDP in 2014, 15.1 percent in 2015 and 20.6 percent in 2016. Unless oil prices increase significantly, the country will face the […]

Bahrain’s political scene has never been defined by the presence of a robust opposition. But the dissolution last Wednesday of Waad, a major secular opposition group, took an ongoing crackdown to new heights. Waad was hardly the first opposition movement to be targeted; one year ago, for example, the government suspended the activities of al-Wefaq, at the time Bahrain’s main Shiite political party. But Waad will likely be the last opposition group to endure the government’s wrath for a while, by virtue of the fact that it was the only one left. Waad was a fixture of the pro-democracy protests […]

With multiple conflicts raging in the Middle East, the last thing the region needed was yet another vitriolic confrontation bursting to the surface. But that is precisely what has transpired in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia. Members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, led by Riyadh, are fuming at the GCC’s maverick member, Qatar, in the aftermath of a very odd chain of events. For now, the clashes have been limited to a war of words, mostly in the media. But the temperature is high, and the crisis has proven remarkable for its failure to […]