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 Iranians, meanwhile, might try to scuttle the entire effort by demanding Israel's inclusion, a call that would have tremendous resonance among the Arab populations of the Persian Gulf. Bringing Israel into such a system would mean saddling the Persian Gulf security system with the additional problems and endless disputes of the Arab-Israeli peace process and the Middle East as a whole, which would clearly be impractical.

Still, if it could somehow be made to work, a regional security condominium would offer the best prospect of creating a stable, secure Persian Gulf. But making it work will be quite a feat and take years, if not decades. The United States should thus enshrine this as its ultimate goal and start moving in that direction promptly. The mere process of announcing it as Washington's intention and convening a conference on Persian Gulf security, in fact, could have powerful positive effects, legitimizing the U.S. presence in the region and discrediting those who oppose it.

A condominium, however, should not become the sole focus of American efforts to create a new security architecture in the region, because better solutions are needed for the more immediate term. In truth, the three models proposed above are not mutually exclusive and perhaps might most usefully be seen as steps in an ongoing process. The United States could make some moves today to diminish force levels in accord with the offshore balancing approach. Meanwhile, it could begin exploring the possibility of either a new alliance system in the region or the inauguration of a process to construct a security condominium. Indeed, the threat of a new U.S.-GCC-Iraqi alliance might be another powerful incentive for Iran to participate in a security condominium, whereas the articulation of such a goal might make an alliance more acceptable to the GCC states. Ultimately, if the security condominium succeeds, peace is maintained, and forces throughout the region are considerably reduced, the road may be clear for a truly over-the-horizon American presence in the Persian Gulf -- a development that would be greatly welcomed by all concerned.