Securing the Gulf

Kenneth M. Pollack

From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2003

Summary:  The sweeping military victory in Iraq has cleared the way for the United States to establish yet another framework for Persian Gulf security. Ironically, with Saddam Hussein gone, the problems are actually going to get more challenging in some ways. The three main issues will be Iraqi power, Iran's nuclear weapons program, and domestic unrest in the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council. None will be easy to handle, let alone all three together.

Kenneth M. Pollack is Director of Research at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. From 1995 to 1996 and 1999 to 2001, he served as Director for Persian Gulf Affairs on the staff of the National Security Council.

The paradox of Iraqi power can be put simply: any Iraq that is strong enough to balance and contain Iran will inevitably be capable of overrunning Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. This was the problem the region faced at the end of the Iran-Iraq War, when Iraq's destruction of the Iranian army and air force left it in a position to conquer Kuwait and threaten Saudi oil fields soon afterward. The recent American victory over Saddam will do little to affect this basic dynamic, because it stems less from the nature of Iraq's leadership than from simple geopolitics. Like postwar Germany and Japan, post-Saddam Iraq will almost certainly be forbidden from developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) ever again. But it will still have to find some way of protecting itself from a real, albeit distant, threat from Iran. If Iraq is not going to be allowed to possess WMD, then it will have to obtain some kind of credible external security guarantee or maintain substantial -- and threatening -- conventional military capabilities.

As for Iran, according to the latest estimates of U.S. intelligence and even of the International Atomic Energy Agency, its nuclear program has gone into overdrive and unless stopped -- from inside or outside -- is likely to produce one or more nuclear weapons within five years. (Of course, the mistaken estimates of Iraq's nuclear program over the last 20 years reinforce the uncertainty underlying all such assessments.) In the case of Iraq, preemptive intervention was a thinkable (and ultimately doable) option because the United States could invade and occupy the country without a massive mobilization. But that is simply not true in the case of Iran. Its population is three times the size of Iraq's, its landmass is four times the size, its terrain is difficult and would make operations a logistical nightmare, and its population has generally rallied around the regime in the face of foreign threats. Invading Iran would be such a major undertaking that the option is essentially unthinkable in all but the most extraordinary circumstances.

Of course, it is possible that the Iranian nuclear problem might solve itself. The Iranian people are deeply unhappy with the reactionary clerics who cling to power in Tehran, and since 1997, they have voted consistently and overwhelmingly against the hard-liners. Moreover, Iran's population is very young, and the Iranian youth most strongly oppose the current regime and favor a more democratic system of government. Thus time is on the side of Iran's reformers. What's more, most Iranian reformers have expressed an interest in good relations with the United States.

All this matters because although the United States preaches a policy of universal nuclear nonproliferation, in practice, Washington has consistently, and probably correctly, been much more concerned with proliferation by its enemies (such as Iraq and North Korea) than by its friends (such as Israel and, to a lesser extent, India). American fears about Iran's nuclear program might well be lessened, therefore, by the emergence of a pluralist and pro-American government in Tehran (although even then Iranian nuclear advances would cause a major headache because of their inevitable effects on proliferation elsewhere in the region).

The problem is that no one can be certain that the reformers will triumph in Iran or, if so, when. In particular, it is not clear that the hard-liners will fall before Iran has obtained nuclear weapons. It is thus only prudent to assume that Iran will acquire nuclear weapons while its hard-line clerics are still in power, and so the United States must be prepared for that contingency. But the very actions that might be indicated in such circumstances -- continued diplomatic and economic pressure, an aggressive military posture on Iran's borders, even threats to use force -- could easily backfire in the maelstrom of Iranian domestic politics in ways that undermine or forestall the prospects for a "velvet revolution" in Tehran. Iran's hard-liners maintain power in part by stoking popular fears that the United States seeks to rule the country and control its policies, and so aggressive containment or active counterproliferation measures could play right into their hands. The Iranian paradox, in other words, is that preparing to deal with the worst-case scenario of Iranian hard-liners possessing nuclear weapons might very well make that scenario more likely.

Tehran appears to want nuclear weapons principally to deter an American attack. Once it gets them, however, its strategic calculus might change and it might be emboldened to pursue a more aggressive foreign policy. Iran's armed forces are still too weak to contemplate either a ground advance through Iraq into the Arabian Peninsula or an amphibious operation across the Persian Gulf, and they will remain so for a while. So the risk is not so much conventional military invasion as attempts to shut down tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz as a method of blackmail or foment insurrections in neighboring countries. Unfortunately, the security posture that would best deter future Iranian aggression -- sizable American forces dispersed throughout the Persian Gulf -- is the worst option of all from the perspective of dealing with the third major problem, terrorism and internal instability in the states of the GCC.

Terrorism and internal instability in the Persian Gulf are ultimately fueled by the political, economic, and social stagnation of the local Arab states. It is true that American policies anger many Arabs and that the Palestinian issue is a matter of great popular concern. But these are not really what creates fertile ground for domestic insurrection or the recruitment efforts of radical Islamist groups such as al Qaeda. What is more important is that too many Arabs are unemployed or underemployed because of the utter failure of their economic systems. Too many feel powerless and humiliated by despotic governments that do less and less for them while preventing them from having any say in their own governance. And too many feel both threatened and stifled within a society that cannot come to grips with modernity.

Most Middle East experts think that a revolution or civil war in any of the GCC states within the next few years is unlikely, but few say so now as confidently as they once did. In fact, even the Persian Gulf regimes themselves are increasingly fearful of their mounting internal turmoil, something that has prompted all of them to announce democratic and economic reform packages at some point during the last ten years. From Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to the emir of Qatar to the new king of Bahrain, the Persian Gulf rulers recognize the pressure building among their populations and the need to let off some of the steam. If the reforms do not succeed and revolution or civil war ensues, the United States might face some very difficult security challenges. Widespread unrest in Saudi Arabia, for example, would threaten Saudi oil exports just as surely as an Iranian invasion.

The best way for the United States to address the rise of terrorism and the threat of internal instability in Saudi Arabia and the other GCC states would be to reduce its military presence in the region to the absolute minimum, or even to withdraw entirely. The presence of American troops fuels the terrorists' propaganda claims that the United States seeks to prop up the hated local tyrants and control the Middle East. And it is a source of humiliation and resentment for pretty much all locals -- a constant reminder that the descendants of the great Islamic empires can no longer defend themselves and must answer to infidel powers. So pulling back would diminish the internal pressure on the Persian Gulf regimes and give them the political space they need to enact the painful reforms that are vital to their long-term stability. But such a withdrawal, in turn, would be the worst move from the perspective of deterring and containing Iran -- or of being in a good position to respond swiftly to, say, a civil war in Saudi Arabia should one ever emerge.

Given these conundrums, finding a workable new security architecture for the Persian Gulf will be far from easy. Iraq must be kept strong but not too strong. Iran must be kept in check while being pushed to liberalize. The governments of the GCC states must be given breathing room to reform but still be protected from their external and internal enemies. Balancing these various interests, threats, and constraints will be difficult, so much so that it would not be surprising if the next American strategy for doing so ultimately failed, just as the previous ones did. Still, the situation is not entirely hopeless. There may not be a silver bullet, a perfect policy that secures every interest and counters every threat while avoiding all the strategic, political, and cultural minefields. But three broad approaches -- pulling back "over the horizon," trying to form a local NATO-like defense pact, or trying to establish a security condominium -- have enough merits to be considered seriously.