With arms and alliance, US seeks to calm Gulf jitters

Washington boosts weapons and intelligence-sharing for campaign against Yemen's Iran-backed rebels as Obama mulls formal security framework with regional allies.

The US deputy secretary of state Antony Blinken announces quicker arms delivery and greater intelligence sharing with the Saudi-led anti-Houthi coalition during a visit to Riyadh on April 7, 2015. AhmShow more

New York // The United States said on Tuesday it was speeding up arms supplies to the Saudi-led coalition against Houthi rebels in Yemen, underlining efforts by President Barack Obama to reassure Gulf Arab allies of his country’s commitment to the region.

US deputy secretary of state Antony Blinken said Washington was also stepping up intelligence sharing with the anti-Houthi alliance.

“Saudi Arabia is sending a strong message to the Houthis and their allies that they cannot overrun Yemen by force,” he said, referring to Riyadh’s leadership of the military campaign by several Arab countries against the Iranian-allied rebels who have forced the internationally recognised president, Abdrabu Mansur Hadi, to flee the country.

Warplanes from Saudi Arabia and regional allies, including the UAE, have been targeting the Houthis to pressure the Shiite rebels to resume a UN-backed political transition led by Mr Hadi that was interrupted by the group’s seizure of Sanaa in September.

Mr Blinken called for all political parties to commit to a consensus political solution.

“As part of that effort, we have expedited weapons deliveries, we have increased our intelligence sharing, and we have established a joint coordination planning cell in the Saudi operation centre,” he said during a visit to Riyadh.

The coalition airstrikes also seek to check growing Iranian influence in the region, a concern that has been heightened by the increasing likelihood of a deal between Tehran and world powers that would end Iran’s international isolation over its nuclear programme.

Mr Obama has sought to allay such fears in phone calls to Saudi King Salman and other GCC leaders, and has raised the possiblility of formalising the bloc’s security relationship with the US, perhaps through a Nato-style mutual defence treaty, in order to gain their support for the nuclear deal with Iran.

He is also likely to host a meeting with GCC foreign ministers this spring, although no formal announcement has been made so far.

In a phone call on Monday, Mr Obama told Omani ruler Sultan Qaboos that the US would continue to work with “regional partners to address Iran’s destabilising activities in the region”.

The White House is rolling out a campaign to convince sceptics in congress and, more importantly, among US allies in the Middle East that, even if a nuclear deal is signed with Tehran, Washington will not reduce its opposition to Iran’s projection of power through local proxies across the region.

The Obama administration is considering a defence alliance with Arab Gulf countries, which analysts say is intended to demonstrate to them that their interests will not be damaged.

“I think we’re going to be there for our friends [in the region] and I want to see how we can formalise that a little bit more than we currently have, and also help build their capacity so that they feel more confident about their ability to protect themselves from external aggression,” Mr Obama told The New York Times in an interview published on Sunday.

With no other details offered, questions remain over how such a proposal will address Gulf concerns about Iran’s regional interference.

Questions also remain over the extent to which distrust in the Gulf of US intentions has been overcome.

Mr Obama’s re-emphasis, in the interview, on political reform as a pillar of US engagement is sure to irk Gulf officials, many of whom would rather the US focus on the escalating threats posed by a range of actors in the region than on what they see as the less pressing task of adopting more representative governance.

“The biggest threats that they face may not be coming from Iran invading. It’s going to be from dissatisfaction inside their own countries,” Mr Obama said. “Now disentangling that from real terrorist activity inside their country, how we sort that out ... without automatically legitimising or validating whatever repressive tactics they may employ – I think that’s a tough conversation to have, but it’s one that we have to have.”

In recent months, the US has signalled that its posture has changed from the one it assumed in the initial wake of the Arab Spring, backing Riyadh’s operation against Iran-supported rebels in Yemen and providing withheld military assistance to Egypt. But renewed talk of political reform could make Mr Obama’s job in his meeting with GCC ministers much trickier.

“From the Gulf states’ perspective, there’s already been a certain rapprochement between Washington and Iran, the US is becoming more independent with oil – now President Obama is talking about Gulf states needing to address their dissatisfied populations and this being a big problem,” said Lori Plotkin Boghardt, a fellow in Gulf politics at the Washington Institute. “These are all signs from the Gulf’s perspective that Washington is less committed to them.”

The stakes for Mr Obama are high. If Riyadh, in particular, does not feel assured and pursues its own nuclear capabilities, it could be highly destabilising for the region.

While the US – despite its partners’ anxiety – is committed to security in the Gulf for its own vital interests, a formal treaty that cements the relationship would not only gain Gulf support for the Iran deal, but would also reduce their anxiety about US intentions generally and allow Washington to pursue policies that have been resisted, say analysts who are proponents of a treaty.

It would “give the US flexibility in its own attempt to redesign its posture” to adapt to a region in flux, said Bilal Saab, a Gulf security analyst at the Atlantic Council who co-authored a new report advocating a formal US-Gulf alliance.

US forces that are stationed at a few major bases across the Gulf would be able to able to transition from only protecting against an unlikely Iranian conventional attack, to helping counter Iran’s strategy of using proxy groups in Arab countries, and assisting Gulf countries’ bolster their internal security – including through political development, according to the report.

Iran has exploited political tensions between Shia citizens and some Gulf governments. “A major antidote to that are politically stable, internally strong US partners,” Mr Saab said. ISIL has also benefited in part from the failure of some countries to deliver basic services and to make sure that “as wide a margin of the population as possible is actually invested in the politics of a country”, he said.

“Washington really thinks Gulf governments can create more secure countries … by granting more political and civil rights,” Ms Boghardt said.

A treaty could also pave the way for the long-standing US goal of better integrating Gulf defences, and for the countries to take on more of the security burden rather than relying primarily on Washington, but in a more predictable way and coordinated with the US.

“It’s also in the US interest to move in this direction, to have a more capable and reliable partner to get things done and strengthen the consultation link,” said Barry Pavel, director of the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at the Atlantic Council. “Now is an important time to be making the link more structural and sustained.”

Congress would have to ratify such a treaty, and there could be opposition from those who fear it could erode Israel’s military edge or that the US should not enter into binding alliances with non-democratic countries.

Critics of a mutual defence pact say that it could lead to serious tensions with Gulf partners if conflicting interpretations arise over what constitutes an attack by Iran or militant groups, and where the line is drawn between legitimate political dissent and terrorism.

“If we have a formal arrangement then we’re constantly going to be arguing over the interpretation of the arrangement,” said David Des Roches, a former US military and Nato official who is now associate professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Security Studies. “If smuggling boats were bringing weapons into Bahrain I can see the Bahrainis say ‘we’re being invaded’, and the US would reply that this is more of an internal thing.”

The US military presence in the Gulf has also fed an extremist narrative about US occupation, and a formal alliance that may entail more US forces would have to be careful not to exacerbate such perceptions.

With billions in US weapons systems sold to Gulf countries, some think a better strategy would be to assist them putting these capabilities to use in a more coordinated way to countering and deterring Iran.

The “biggest thing we could do is help them upgrade their regional capabilities – their ability to work together”, Admiral Mike Mullen, the former top US military officer, told the Wall Street Journal.