Being There: Spring 1998 in the Persian/Arabian Gulf

By Richard H. Curtiss

In some 25 years in U.S. government public affairs positions dealing with the media in the Middle East, I noted that just as the Beirut- or Cairo-based journalists quickly came to understand what was going on there, the Washington-based media invariably got everything important about the Middle East wrong. Now, after some 20 years in Middle East-centered media work in Washington, I note that U.S. government officials who haven’t served extensively in the Middle East similarly get everything important about the Middle East wrong. In short, to understand what’s happening and what’s about to happen, there’s no substitute for being there. This spring, with the Iraq crisis in temporary remission, U.S.-Iran relations temporarily warming, and any hopes for lasting Israeli land-for-peace deals with Palestinian, Syrian or Lebanese authorities on hold so long as Binyamin Netanyahu remains prime minister of Israel, there was time to notice many little things, besides the abundant wild flowers that sprang up in the wake of last winter’s heavy El Niño-nourished rainfall.

Kuwait: Overdosing on Democracy

Friends of Israel describe it as the Middle East’s only working democracy. They’re wrong on both counts. First, Israeli democracy only works if you’re Jewish. And second, a number of other Middle Eastern countries are experimenting with their own democratic variations ranging from popularly elected parliaments to appointed consultative councils. The stumbling block for most or perhaps all such experiments is that they combine a head of state with as-yet unlimited powers with a parliament or consultative body with ill-defined or untested responsibilities. A constitutional monarchy with carefully defined and clearly limited powers, as in the U.K. and other countries of northern Europe, doesn’t yet exist anywhere in the Middle East.

An example is Kuwait. By now all Kuwaitis must understand what Winston Churchill was driving at when he deplored the fact that democracy is so inefficient, especially since, as he pointed out, it is the best system of governance yet devised. Kuwaitis might agree with at least the first part of Churchill’s statement.

The most recent example was a wave of criticism launched by Islamist deputies in Kuwait’s parliament against the minister of information, Sheikh Saud Nasser Al Sabah. In 1990 and 1991 he was the Kuwait ambassador to the U.S. who conceived and directed the highly effective information campaign aimed at Americans during the Iraqi occupation of his country.

This year’s parliamentary complaints concerned some 150 books, mostly from Egypt, displayed at an annual book fair. Such fairs provide readers with opportunities to obtain imported books at bargain prices. However, Kuwait, like almost all Middle East countries (including Israel but with the recent exception of Qatar), has a censorship department in its Ministry of Information. Its job is to shield Kuwaitis from observations that might offend, or inflame, their sensibilities.

The task is hopeless, of course, in a highly prosperous country where virtually every house has one or more satellite dishes that enable the owners, or even their home-alone children, to bring whatever they choose into the television sets in their living rooms. Therefore, in the rush to clear the thousands of books on display, the Information Ministry censors apparently didn’t scan carefully some volumes of sermons, critiques and commentaries on Islamic subjects.

Some Islamist parliamentarians, perhaps looking for trouble where it seemed least likely to appear, did study the books and cobbled together a pastiche of statements from them that, taken out of context, seemed to cast doubts, criticisms or aspersions on some of the accepted tenets of Islamic thought.

The parliamentarians demanded that the information minister, who also happens to be a member of the ruling Al Sabah family, dismiss a deputy minister they held responsible for allowing the books into Kuwait. Instead, Sheikh Saud resigned himself. Then Kuwait’s ruler appointed him to the even more prestigious position of petroleum minister.

This provoked public grumbling, and the parliamentarians vowed new “grilling” of another as-yet-unnamed minister. The end result of the highly publicized imbroglio, according to a government official intimately involved in the dispute, was the further widening of a chasm that separates the “modernists” within the government from the “traditionalists,” of both Sunni and Shi’i persuasion, who form a vocal minority within the parliament.

In a country with no external enemies (if any such countries exist in the Middle East) none of this would make much difference. But in Kuwait, divided internally between Sunni and Shi’i Muslims and hemmed in externally by “modernist” extremists in Iraq and “Islamist” extremists in Iran, the sparks struck in such public duels between parliamentarians and the ruling family could easily ignite a renewed conflagration in one of the Middle East’s smallest but richest emirates.

United Arab Emirates: Domestic Tranquility, External Threats

The United Arab Emirates is an amalgam dating back to 1971 of seven former “Trucial States” whose individual rulers share a foreign policy and unified armed forces but enjoy all the other trappings of national independence. Until the exploitation of Abu Dhabi’s abundant petroleum resources began in the 1960s, the area was one of the least developed in the world.

The founding of the UAE owes much to the vision of its president, Abu Dhabi ruler Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. It probably also owes its survival as a successful experiment in Arab unity to his generosity with Abu Dhabi’s petroleum revenues to the rulers of the other, less well-endowed sheikhdoms. Although he is in his late 70s, Sheikh Zayed’s clarity of political vision was never more obvious than during the past year, when he began calling for his fellow rulers throughout the Arab world to recognize that the Israeli-Arab peace process had started dying with the election of Binyamin Netanyahu as prime minister of Israel, and to unite to confront the changed situation.

Along with the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Sheikh Zayed’s outspoken opposition to the third, and predictably last, Middle East economic conference in Doha, Qatar, ensured the failure of this U.S.- sponsored project to secure, on the sly, the economic integration of Israel into the region without the Israeli territorial concessions called for under U.N. Security Council Resolution 242’s land-for-peace formula, and the derivative Oslo accords.

While Abu Dhabi is the political capital of the UAE, Dubai, with a long mercantile tradition and a scenic harbor now framed by modern skyscrapers, is waging a campaign to become the commercial capital of the Gulf region. Its streets are thronged with businessmen and their families from Europe, North America, Asia and, especially, Britain, who have set up regional headquarters operations in Dubai for companies the world over.

In March and April Dubai took on an even more attractive air with a shopping extravaganza that brought entertainment seekers, bargain hunters and tourists from other nations of the Middle East and around the world—and especially from Russia and the other countries of the former Soviet Union. For a few weeks Dubai was the best place to find bargains from all over the globe. It also was the scene of nightly entertainment extravaganzas rivaling anything produced at Disney World.

The events demonstrated that Emiris, the citizens of the UAE, with a per capita gross national product of more than $17,000, rivaling that of many European countries, have much for which to be thankful. In fact, if individual prosperity can most accurately be measured by trash generated, the UAE tops the world with 1.9 to 2.1 kilograms of waste production per resident per day, compared to 1.8 to 2.0 kilos per American and Canadian and .9 to 1.1 kilos per day in Europe.

Even with this year’s drop in petroleum prices, which the UAE can absorb far more easily than can most major oil producers, there were only two real shadows over the seven peaceable emirates. The first was Sheikh Zayed’s age. Although friendly neighboring Saudi Arabia has a demonstrated record of peaceful transitions from the rule of one member of the Al Saud family to another, Sheikh Zayed has been the dominant figure in the UAE since its founding. However, although something unforeseen could happen when he leaves the scene, it almost certainly won’t. Everyone involved has too much to lose.

More ominous is the threat posed by Iran’s continuing military occupation of three islands traditionally claimed by two of the component emirates, Sharja and Ras Al Khaimah. In fact, the liberalization within Iran that followed the election of Mohammad Khatami as president seems to have created new problems for the UAE, which at first welcomed the Iranian developments as eagerly as did the rest of the world.

Now, residents of the Arab side of the Gulf watch Iran more warily, fearing that internal rivalries between contending factions within Iran’s Islamist government could tempt Iran’s troubled rulers to stir up an external crisis to relieve domestic tensions. Aside from that vague threat, however, it’s the best time ever to be an Emiri, and the 2.5 million residents know it.

Qatar: Mending Regional Fences

The spring drop in world oil prices hurt Qatar, a Gulf emirate that chose to stay out of the UAE, more than it did Qatar’s oil-producing neighbors. The reason is that the huge natural gas deposits beneath the territorial waters of this least populous of the six Gulf Cooperation Council member states give it the potential for the highest per capital gross domestic product in the world. But, to realize that potential, Qatar first has to invest billions of additional dollars in facilities to process and ship liquid natural gas (LNG) to energy-hungry countries around the world.

In addition to the huge long-term investment demands on its oil revenues needed to realize its full gas-producing potential, Qatar has had to overcome some related domestic political problems. Its present ruler, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, impatient with his father’s reluctance to release the funds needed for investment, took over in a bloodless coup in 1995. The initial result was a surge in domestic economic activity that spread much-needed wealth among Qataris who had watched other Gulf emirates pass them by.

Seizing on a wave of popularity among his own people, the emir and his energetic foreign minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al Thani, then initiated a number of domestic political and social reforms that proved less popular with Qatar’s more conservative neighbors. Censorship, and even the Ministry of Information that carried it out, were abolished. Qatar also initiated popular elections for municipal positions, the first Arab state of the Gulf to do so. And educational reforms were set in motion not only to increase the quantity but also the quality of schools from the primary school through the university level.

Also unpopular among Qatar’s neighbors were a walkout from a GCC meeting by Qatar’s ruler, and such gestures as the holding of the U.S.-backed Near East Economic Conference in Doha last November. Now, with U.S. Mideast policies in shambles and Netanyahu’s Israel again consigned by Muslim nations to the outer darkness, Qatar’s new government has embarked on systematic regional fence-mending, while seeking not to distance itself unnecessarily from a seemingly indifferent or inattentive Clinton administration.

Qatar’s emir visited Abu Dhabi early this year to restore previous close ties with UAE president Sheikh Zayed, who had been personally offended at the younger ruler’s GCC walkout in the early months of his rule. Qatar’s foreign minister made an extensive visit in March to Washington, where he met not only with key members of the Clinton administration, but also with U.S. businessmen and investors.

With GCC rifts healed, and its policy seemingly more in line with the Arab world’s perceptible shift away from the Clinton administration’s Mideast policies, Qatar—which has become host to a seeming endless series of major world sporting events and which, like the neighboring UAE, has become a winter Mecca for sun-seeking European tourists, looks more like a pioneer and less like a rebel within GCC ranks.

Saudi Arabia: A Co-Ruler Who Knows How to Say No

Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam, the world’s fastest-growing religion, which already is embraced by a fifth of humanity. Islam now rules unchallenged, except in India, from Morocco to Indonesia and has become a significant presence in North and South America and Europe as well. Among adherents to world religions, Muslims are exceeded in numbers only by Christians, who also are increasing, and the gap may be narrowing.

Until the middle of the 20th century, pilgrims to Islam’s two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina provided the major portion of Saudi Arabia’s revenues. That changed abruptly with Saudi emergence as the world’s largest petroleum producer. Now the Islamic holy sites have evolved from the Kingdom’s greatest economic asset to its greatest responsibility.

And that responsibility grows. Much of the modern Kingdom’s resources have been invested in improving the conditions of the annual pilgrimage. This includes building a network of hostels and hotels for the annual floods of pilgrims, and the provision of clean water, safe roads, and adequate sanitary and hospital facilities.

A steady trickle of pilgrims enters and exits Saudi Arabia year round, but the major hajj, the pilgrimage required of all Muslims who can afford it, occurs during an annual week-long observance that rotates around the calendar according to the lunar year, which is about 10 days shorter than the solar year.

This year’s hajj took place in late March and early April. During that period a record 2.3 million Muslims, perhaps 1.3 million of whom arrived from outside the country’s borders, simultaneously observed the strenuous pilgrimage requirements. This puts a tremendous, some might say unbearable, strain on the facilities of a country whose entire resident population does not exceed 18 million people.

Until the sixth and final day it appeared that this year’s pilgrimage would be carried out without a hitch, other than hospitalization of thousands of mostly elderly pilgrims who are treated every year for ailments ranging from heat exhaustion to heart attacks. Then, as has happened twice before in the 1990s, overcrowding led to a sudden stampede in which an estimated 150 pilgrims were trampled or fell to their deaths from a bridge leading to the site of a required ritual symbolizing “stoning the devil.” As in previous years, there simply were too many people crowding into too small a space in too short a time.

Nor are such accidents the only problems for Saudis growing out of the pilgrimage. Among the millions who arrive in the oil-rich Kingdom, tens of thousands are from impoverished countries, some on the brink of economic and ecological disaster. Some of these visitors are reluctant to leave the relative opulence of the petroleum-fired Saudi economy. Even more problematical is the difficulty of controlling who arrives from politically unstable parts of the world, and what their intentions may be vis-á-vis the Saudi government and its leaders.

Aside from these perennial problems and this year’s tragedy, whose toll was mercifully smaller than the two previous occurrences, things are going well in Saudi Arabia. Saudis have become accustomed to the uncertainty stemming from the failing health of King Fahd Ibn Abdul Aziz. For one lengthy period and now sometimes from day to day, his successor and half-brother, Crown Prince Abdullah Ibn Abdul Aziz, has stepped in to rule temporarily. If King Fahd leaves the scene, therefore, there should be no surprises.

In fact, it is the Crown Prince who is conducting the most delicate, and politically significant, rapprochement with Iran that began with the election of Mohammad Khatami as Iran’s president. The warming of relations could be set back with an onset of instability within Iran’s faction-torn government. But if the improvement of relations continues, spearheaded by an apparently warm personal rapport between President Khatami and Crown Prince Abdullah, this would remove the major element of instability plaguing the shores of the strategic body of water that Iranians call the Persian Gulf and their Arab neighbors call the Arabian Gulf.

Should that occur, the prospects for effective Islamic political unity would be immeasurably increased, and the demand for expensive modern weapons of war on both sides of the Gulf could be significantly reduced.

As staff writer Elaine Sciolino wrote in the April 12 New York Times, “Crown Prince Abdullah, who is running the country on a day-to-day basis, simply isn’t as likely as his brother the king to say yes every time the United States asks for something.”

That’s bad news for Binyamin Netanyahu and his friends in the Clinton administration. But it’s very good news for long-term economic and political stability in the Persian/Arabian Gulf—and for world peace in the 21st century.

Richard Curtiss is the executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.