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.

BACK OVER THE HORIZON

The most conservative approach to Persian Gulf security would be to return to the initial American strategy of offshore balancing. When tried in the 1970s and 1980s, this approach failed because Iran and Iraq were still quite strong and the United States' over-the-horizon posture was not a sufficient deterrent. Today, however, Iran and Iraq are much weaker and are likely to remain so (at least until Iran acquires nuclear weapons). Washington, meanwhile, has repeatedly demonstrated that it will intervene in the Persian Gulf to protect its interests and prevent aggression. So the strategy might work better this time around.

In this approach, the United States would dramatically reduce its military footprint in the region, leaving only the bare minimum of the current arrangements in place. The headquarters of the 5th Fleet would remain in Bahrain (where a U.S. Navy flag has been welcome for 50 years), but fewer American warships would ply the waters of the Gulf. The air force would retain its huge new base at al Udeid in Qatar, again because the Qataris seem pleased to have it there. The army might keep some prepositioned equipment in Kuwait and Qatar and might regularly rotate in battalions to train on it -- if those states were comfortable with such guests. In addition, if a future Iraqi government were amenable, the United States might retain an air base and some ground presence there. Alternately, army bases in the region might be dispensed with altogether, and instead the United States could simply rely on equipment stored on container ships stationed at Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean.

On the political level, the United States would preserve its informal relationships with the GCC states and possibly add a similar association with a friendly new Iraqi government. It would continue to contain Iran by making clear that any Iranian aggression would be met by an American military response. And it would continue its efforts to secure European, Japanese, and Russian support in pressuring Tehran both economically and diplomatically so as to end Iran's support for terror and its unconventional weapons programs.

This smaller military footprint would go a long way toward alleviating the internal problems caused by the presence of U.S. combat forces in the Persian Gulf region -- so not surprisingly, this is the strategy that the Gulf Arabs themselves favor. With Saddam gone, their overriding goal now is to minimize domestic discontent, and they believe that the United States can keep peace in the region with a minimal presence. This approach would also be popular in certain quarters of the American military, which would be glad to shed the burdens of policing an inhospitable and less than luxurious region far from home.

On the other hand, the mere fact that the Persian Gulf states are so enamored of this strategy ought to give American planners pause. With the exception of Kuwait after the Iraqi invasion, most of these countries have shown a distressing determination over the years to ignore their problems -- both external and internal -- rather than confront them. Although returning to a mostly over-the-horizon presence could provide the Persian Gulf states with the leeway they need to push through reforms, it is equally likely that they will see the withdrawal of U.S. forces as a panacea for all their problems and decide that internal reforms are therefore unnecessary. A reduced U.S. military and political presence, in turn, would weaken Washington's ability to press its local allies to make the tough choices they need to for their own long-term well-being.

A return to an over-the-horizon posture would also risk re-creating some of the same problems that made the strategy untenable the first time around. If Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, a minimal American presence in the region might tempt it to new aggression. The GCC countries have often shown a willingness to accommodate powerful, aggressive neighbors, and a reduced American presence could increase their willingness to do so again -- giving Iran, say, an unhealthy degree of control over oil flows. Finally, a limited American presence might tempt other outside powers -- such as China -- to fish in the Gulf's troubled waters at some point down the road.

A MIDDLE EASTERN NATO

A second approach to securing the Persian Gulf would be to create a new regional defense alliance of the kind that worked so well in Europe during the Cold War. This approach has an even worse reputation in the region than offshore balancing, but it is somewhat undeserved. In 1954, the United States convinced Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and the United Kingdom to sign the Baghdad Pact, pledging them to mutual defense. Four years later, Iraq withdrew, leaving Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey to form the Central Treaty Organization, which became little more than a vehicle for the United States to arm the shah of Iran for the next 20 years. These alliances performed poorly because their members had widely divergent security problems (Pakistan was concerned with India, Turkey with Russia and Greece, and Iran with the Middle East) and because of the revolutions in Iraq in 1958 and Iran in 1979, which knocked out the central players. In today's circumstances, a regional alliance would stand a better chance of succeeding.

The idea would be for the United States to establish a formal defense alliance with the GCC states and a new government of Iraq. To paraphrase Lord Ismay's famous quip about NATO, the goal would be to keep the Americans in, the Iranians out, and the Iraqis down. A formal defense pledge would be the best way to lock in an unflinching American commitment to the security of the region; would serve as the best deterrent to outright Iranian aggression; and, by extending a security guarantee to Iraq, would effectively solve Baghdad's security dilemma as well, providing a benign framework for Iraq's conventional rearmament while obviating the need for it to acquire WMD to deter Iran. As a bonus, if Persian Gulf publics could be convinced that American forces were there as part of a community of equals, such an arrangement might also help legitimize the U.S. presence in the region. Such an alliance should be more viable than its predecessors, meanwhile, because the GCC states and Iraq share the same primary external security threat: Iran.