Issue 914 - 9 December 2011

Bahrain walks a tightrope in wake of inquiry into crackdown

In the wake of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) report into human rights abuses during the government’s crackdown on protesters, Bahrain has entered a critical phase. The leadership’s actions over the coming weeks have the potential to placate or fire up the downtrodden Shia population. So far, little appears to have changed. King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa has removed Sheikh Khalifa Bin Abdullah Al-Khalifa, a former ambassador to London, from his role as head of the much-feared National Security Agency, but the decision to keep him in a senior security role (as national security adviser with ministerial rank and secretary-general of the Supreme Defence Council) negates any goodwill that might have been gained from the move.
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Issue 913 – 25 November 2011

Advantage Erbil: ExxonMobil deal springs from new Iraqi tensions

ExxonMobil’s audacious six-block deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has plunged a dagger into the already uneasy peace between Arabs and Kurds, giving an immediate public relations boost to the headline-chasing KRG natural resources minister Ashti Hawrami and pouring further misery onto Baghdad’s embattled deputy prime minister for energy affairs Hussein Al-Shahristani.
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Arab Spring gives impetus to revival of Qatar’s democratic commitment

Qatar has at last announced plans for elections in 2013, nine years after a new constitution granted legislative powers to a semi-elected Majlis Al-Shura (Consultative Council). Under the 2003 constitution, 30 of the Shura’s 45 members will be elected for four-year terms; they will have the right to propose laws, approve the state budget and question the prime minister and ministers (GSN 708/10, 690/6, 648/7). The remaining 15 members will be appointed. Laws must be endorsed by the emir, but in a significant step he must approve a law if it is sent back to him a second time by the Shura with two-thirds majority support. No-confidence motions can be moved against a minister with the signature of at least 15 Shura members and carried with a two-thirds majority.
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Issue 911 - 28 October 2011

Spotlight on Middle East arms sale unlikely to bring meaningful change

Criticism surrounding the $53m US deal to sell armoured vehicles and military equipment to Bahrain has grabbed the headlines, but it is a drop in the ocean in terms of US arms exports.  Postponement of the deal until the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry reports its findings into human rights abuses in the country during the recent unrest, now due on 23 November, is a reminder of the conflicting interests of western governments in their dealings with the Middle East.  The postponement is an easy enough act of appeasement, and does not change the fact that it remains in the US’ interest to do everything to maintain the stability of the Fifth Fleet base in Manama, home to the US Navy’s maritime security operations in the Gulf and an asset that will become of increasing strategic importance following the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
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Issue 910 - 14 October 2011

Shedding light on the distribution of royal wealth in Saudi Arabia

Confronted with long-term concerns over the budget’s ability to support such huge levels of public spending (GSN 906/12), and more immediate criticism over governance issues – highlighted by new reports of corruption linked to subsidiaries of European aerospace giant EADS  – how wealth is shared out in Saudi Arabia is a hot issue that will not go away, with the ‘Arab Spring’ adding urgency to complaints that many citizens are excluded from jobs and social benefits.  The Kingdom’s vast disparities of wealth are not a new story, as shown by the hundreds of cables from the US embassy in Riyadh leaked to WikiLeaks.  One dispatch which has attracted the most interest is entitled Saudi Royal Wealth: Where Do They Get All That Money?
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Issue 909 - 30 September 2011

Oman looks to cement its place as the Switzerland of the region

Switzerland, Iraq and, bizarrely, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Hollywood actor Sean Penn were among those credited with helping to secure the release of the US citizens who spent two years behind bars in Tehran on spying charges.  But when Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer touched down in Muscat, Fattal said: “Our deepest gratitude goes toward his majesty Sultan Qaboos [Bin Said Al-Said] of Oman for obtaining our release.”

Long known in the region as “a friend to all and the enemy of none”, the mountainous Gulf nation is not merely a neutral state but actively tries to reduce tensions and balance regional powers.  In typical Omani style, this has always been quiet, behind-the-scenes mediation, with Sultan Qaboos shying away from a more public role as a regional arbitrator or conciliator.  
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Issue 907 - 2 September 2011

Maktoums rule the markets as MBR takes responsibility for DIFC

While the Dubai PR machine seeks to persuade the outside world that all is well following the commercial emirate’s debt crisis, the senior Al-Maktoum leadership has looked to itself to take a leading role in dragging injured financial institutions back to health.  Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum (MBR) has, in many respects, adopted a conservative response to cleaning up after the debt bubble, which burst in late 2008 and continues to make waves. 
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Issue 906 - 5 August2011

Bahrain stalemate continues despite conclusion of National Dialogue

Bahrain’s National Dialogue concluded on 30 July with three concrete recommendations and a lot more woolly statements presented to King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa (GSN 905/4).  If robustly implemented, these measures could eventually lead to more representative, tolerant government and greater transparency, in a system where a wider range of Bahraini voices are heard and officials are brought to account for abuses (with ministers potentially facing Kuwait-style ‘grillings’ in parliament).  But goodwill from all sides, and strenuous efforts to rebuild consensus and confidence across society, will be required for such a system to emerge from the ashes of Bahrain’s strangled ‘Arab Spring’.  That is not yet apparent.
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Issue 905 - 22 July 2011

Education not Emiratisation is the key to a local, skilled workforce

The perennial headache of how to ‘nationalise’ Gulf workforces and reduce dependence on foreign workers has taken on a new urgency since the ‘Arab Spring’. Recent unrest has highlighted the fact that high unemployment not only threatens the economy, but security and stability, too. The UAE’s Executive Council has ordered a new Emiratisation drive amid concerns that a young population suffering high levels of unemployment, estimated to be around 13% among Emiratis, will be more likely to join the protests that have swept other parts of the region.
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Issue 904 - 8 July 2011

Saudi nuclear threat reflects fear of Iranian paper tiger’s steel claws

Prince Turki Al-Faisal has again shown his capacity to express Saudi policy concerns that go beyond the platitudes that too often pass for political discourse in the Gulf, this time discussing concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and interference in regional conflict zones.  Turki speaks with authority, as a former head of Saudi General Intelligence and ambassador to London and Washington, even though his comments may be best interpreted as personal – and not as a direct conduit for King Abdullah’s thinking. But in an address to British and US military officials at RAF Molesworth – an airbase used by Nato to gather intelligence on the Middle East – Turki articulated a threat that other officials have expressed in private over several years: that if Iran continues to push forward its nuclear programme, Saudi Arabia will be forced to follow suit, raising the spectre of a nuclear arms race in the region.  The emerging ‘Arab-Iranian cold war’ has made those fears all the more acute, and Turki is acting as a bellwether of establishment thinking (GSN 898/16)
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Issue 903 - 24 June 2011

Libya conflict shows global reach of emerging polities Qatar and Turkey

Largely unaffected by the ‘Arab Spring’ surging through the Middle East and North Africa (Mena), Qatar – with its tiny national population and burgeoning hydrocarbons and investment revenues – has consolidated its reputation as a small state that punches hugely above its demographic weight in a number of arenas of current global significance, including Libya and Sudan (where Doha has played a significant role, largely unrecognised, in smoothing the financial complexities of the impending independence of South Sudan and its impact on the regime in Khartoum).
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Issue 902 - 10 June 2011

UK companies nervously await implementation of Bribery Act

GSN was recently shown an email from a Gulf-based international law firm touting for business on the back of the UK Bribery Act 2010, which will be implemented on 1 July. In rather alarmist terms, it asks the recipient to imagine they are sat in their air-conditioned office when there is a knock at the door from “the authorities”, who demand documentary evidence of the company’s anti-corruption policies.
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Issue 901 - 27 May 2011

GCC remakes itself as a monarchs’ club to better confront the Arab Spring

The much-publicised initiative for Morocco and Jordan to join the Gulf Co-operation Council surprised many when it was announced by new GCC secretary-general Abdelatif Al-Zayani, but it was not a new suggestion – it was proposed some years ago but quietly dropped – and has a political and economic logic for most of those involved. Expanding the Arab monarchs’ club by drawing in Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Morocco’s King Mohammed VI (‘M6’) makes sense for Gulf leaders as the six-nation GCC comes to terms with an Arab Spring that challenged the hold on power of Bahrain’s Al-Khalifas, forced potentially major concessions from Sultan Qaboos Bin Saeed Al-Said in Oman, and provoked offers of massive spending and security offensives by Saudi Arabia and other governments.
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Issue 899 -29 April 2011