GCC, the Grave Yard of Tyranny and Greed

The GCC investment in Jordan and Morocco is not an investment in stable governance. If they wanted to support democracy and stability, they would have invested in Tunisia and Egypt. Instead, they are investing in regimes that mimic their own Umayyad model of governance. The GCC rulers embraced a selective policy of condemning regimes, like the Syrian one, for abusing their citizens while throwing a safety line to other abusive Bahraini, Moroccan, and Jordanian regimes. Such a policy is shortsighted and unproductive. Western countries should be wary of such political engineering intended to preserve clannish rule, not representative governance.

The Gulf Cooperative Council and the Arab Spring
By Ahmed Souaiaia – December 26, 2011 – FPIF

The Arab world is fundamentally changing, and many Arab leaders are racing to adapt. Showing increased signs of nervousness, the leaders of the Gulf States have adopted the Saudi King’s recommendation to move the Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) toward “unity.” The meeting of the rulers of the GCC member states that concluded last week also issued an unusually portentous declaration. The rulers expressed their fears of “attempts by foreign entities trying to export their internal crises through the effects of discord and division, and inciting sectarianism.” Therefore, they outlined a strategy “to fortify the home front” to counter these attempts through their “determination to achieve the highest degree of economic integration and development of defense cooperation and security.”

Let’s attempt to decipher these seemingly cryptic sentences.

The Saudis in particular, and the other Gulf States in general, are fearful of two main threats, real or perceived. The first threat is Iran, which challenges their long-held religious and ethnic tenets. The second threat is the Arab Awakening, which challenges them ideologically and politically. The two threats seem to be connected now, and they will only be more so in the future. The Gulf State strategy seems to be based on the assumption that the stability of all Gulf regimes can only be disturbed by outside forces.

The Saudi political rulers in particular have tied their destiny to a form of Islamic expression that reveres the “Salaf” and downplays the direct political role of Islamic scholars. The Kingdom’s stability hinges on preserving the Umayyad model of governance, and the conservative interpretation of Islam through the lens of Wahhabism. Modern Islamists’ interpretation of Islam could weaken the Saudi paradigm, which is built on consent, not dissent or contestation. …more