Abstract
The election of Barack Obama as president of the United States in November 2008 was, in general, greeted positively by the countries that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE), particularly because it brought to a close the tumultuous and—from a regional security point of view—quite disastrous years of the previous George W. Bush administration. Those eight years had left the regional security environment in tatters, with two unfinished wars and the reputation of the United States as an ally that had reached historic lows.
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Notes
See also, Rachel Bronson, Thicker Than Oil: America’s Uneasy Relationship with Saudi Arabia (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2005).
An excellent volume on all the aspects of U.S. relations is Robert E. Looney, Handbook of U.S.-Middle East Relations: Formative Factors and Regional Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2009).
A work by Steven Wright, The United States and Persian Gulf Security: The Foundations of the War on Terror (Reading, UK: Ithaca Press, 2007), provides an analysis of the impact of the fundamental revision of the new U.S. strategic design on the security of the Gulf. He comes to the conclusion that the “failure of each other’s concern is actually fostering a ‘fog of war’ that will eventually lead them to a military confrontation that will have vast geopolitical costs.” (208).
See, for example, the seminal work by Michael A. Palmer, Guardians of the Gulf: A History of America’s Expanding Role in the Persian Gulf, 1833–1992 (New York: Free Press, 1992), in which the author tell his readers that the future will hold “more than what Americans have witnessed and dealt with successfully over the past few decades. There will be problems and crises aplenty, but they should be manageable” (249).
See also Joseph Wright Twinam, “America and the Gulf Arabs,” American-Arab Affairs 26 (Fall 1988): 107.
On the general notion of the role of outside powers, see Shahram Chubin, The Role of Outside Powers, vol. 4 of Security in the Persian Gulf (London: Gower for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1982).
See, in particular, Lawrence Freedman, A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008).
HRH Prince Saud Al-Faisal, Minister of Foreign Affairs, “Towards a New Framework for Regional Security,” Saudi Arabia, The Gulf Dialogue, Manama, December 5, 2004, http://www.mofa.gov.sa/media/35123_E05-12-04.pdf. (Accessed on May 11, 2010).
Nicholas Blanford, “Obama Nobel Peace Prize: What Arabs Think,” Christian Science Monitor, December 11, 2009.
Arnand Sagar, “US Will Not Ditch Arab Allies for Iran,” Khaleej Times (Dubai), October 9, 2009.
Gordon Robison, “Has US Accepted a Nuclear Iran?,” Gulf News (Dubai), July 29, 2009.
Dr. Mustafa Alani of the Gulf Research Center, as quoted in Michael Theodoulou, “US plans to halt Iran by ‘defence umbrella’,” The National (Abu Dhabi), July 24, 2009.
Noah Shachtman, “Joint Chiefs Chair: No, No, No. Don’t Attack Iran,” Huffington Post, April 18, 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com /2010/04/18/mike-mullen-iran-attack-t_n_542210.html. (Accessed on April 19, 2010).
Robert G. Kaiser and David Ottaway, “Saudi Leader’s Anger Revealed Shaky Ties,” Washington Post, August 24, 2001.
Bureau of Democracy, “Human Rights and Labor, Human Rights Report: Israel and the Occupied Territories,” March 11, 2010, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2009/nea/136070.htm. (Accessed on April 17, 2010).
Eve Zibel, “State Department ‘Regrets Loss of Life’ in Free Gaza Flotilla Violence, Calls on Israel to Conduct ‘Full and Credible Investigation.’ Israeli PM Cancels White House Visit—Phones President Obama,” Fox News, May 31, 2010, http://whitehouse.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/05/31/breaking-israeli-pm-cancels-white-house-visit-phones-president-obama/. (Accessed on June 1, 2010).
Prince Turki Al-Faisal, “Don’t be Crude: Why Barack Obama’s Energy-Dependence Talk Is Just Demagoguery,” Foreign Policy, September– October 2009, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/08/17/dont_be_crude. (Accessed on October 15, 2009).
Abdullah Al-Shayeji, “Real Change Needed,” Gulf News (Dubai), June 7, 2009.
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© 2011 Shahram Akbarzadeh
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Koch, C. (2011). GCC States Under the Obama Administration. In: Akbarzadeh, S. (eds) America’s Challenges in the Greater Middle East. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230119598_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230119598_4
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