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For much of the past decade, the Gulf has appeared unified politically, economically, and strategically. But recently, divergences are emerging as regional powers pursue increasingly independent paths. As both the regional and global order fractures, what does it mean for Gulf power dynamics and regional stability? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Yasmine Farouk, Gulf and Arabian-Peninsula Project Director for the International Crisis Group, an independent organisation focused on conflict analysis and prevention. She joins us from the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
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00:10hello and good evening i'm melissa idris welcome to consider this this is the show
00:15where we want you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of the day for much
00:20of
00:20the past decade the gulf had appeared unified politically economically and strategically
00:27but recently divergences have been emerging as regional powers pursue increasingly independent
00:35paths as both the regional and global order fractures what does this mean for gulf power
00:42dynamics and regional stability joining me from the munich security conference in germany is yasmin
00:49farrook who is the gulf and arabian peninsula project director for the international crisis
00:54group which is an independent organization focused on conflict analysis and prevention yasmin leads
01:01its research and analysts analysis on gulf geopolitics and has over two decades of
01:08experience studying the region's foreign policy and security dynamics yasmin thank you so much for
01:14joining us from munich um so i want to begin our conversation with the board of peace so the u
01:21.s
01:21led board of peace is going to be meeting for the first time on february 19th and then and several
01:28key regional powers will be um participating we've got saudi arabia and the uae qatar and egypt and
01:36turkey they've all agreed to participate and i'm curious to know what your read is on that what what
01:42are you are observing or what does it tell you about how these regional actors are positioning
01:48themselves um both within the board of peace framework but also in the future the political
01:55future of gaza uh good morning and thank you for having me so the most important element in those gulf
02:05countries or in the arab countries participation in the board of peace is to move on the gaza 20-point
02:13plan by uh that was suggested by president trump and in order to move forward on this plan meaning
02:20really implementing the ceasefire because we cannot say that uh the ceasefire is fully implemented and
02:26opening the doors of gaza fully to human unhindered humanitarian aid which is still not be the case
02:33the board of peace is uh the only channel or the only vehicle now that could achieve this and the
02:40reason why it is the best option that is on the table today is because of the engagement of the
02:46president of the united states he remains the only person capable of putting pressure on israel to
02:54implement the 20-point plan and particularly to alleviate the humanitarian suffering but also to go hand
03:00in hand with the political steps that should be taken to end the occupation of gaza and to move slowly
03:07towards a broader political horizon and these are the main motivations for the arab countries to join
03:15the board of peace and uh we have seen that when they joined as a group they emphasized uh that
03:22they
03:22were joining one uh to work on gaza specifically because as the board of peace uh was announced and
03:31as there were statements by uh u.s administration officials we have seen the mandate expand beyond
03:38gaza we have even seen some tensions with the united nations and the mandate of the united nations in such
03:46situations so arab countries were keen in their statement uh when they joined the board of peace
03:52to make it specific about gaza and to to link it to the security council resolution that uh offers the
04:00legal and legitimate framework for implemented uh the 20-point plan and so they will continue to operate
04:07within this framework and they will continue to use the board of peace for as much as possible
04:12to make progress on the 20-point plan right so when you mentioned the expansion of the mandate of the
04:19the board of peace do we have clarity as to what that is is it clearly defined what the mandate
04:26of the
04:26board of peace is at this stage it is not clear to be honest what uh the board of peace
04:33itself uh is going
04:34to cover in terms of conflicts it seems that what started as a word of peace to uh tackle
04:42gaza uh has now expanded with we've been hearing here in munich that it is possible that it also
04:49starts working or discussing sudan for example but when it comes to the gulf countries and the arab
04:56countries that joined it it's not that they are against working on other conflicts but the priority now
05:01remains not only gaza but also what's happening in the west bank and this file of the israeli-palestinian
05:07conflict in general i couldn't hear uh i mean in munich uh in our meetings or in the panels we
05:14did not really hear one clear definition about the mandate of the board of peace and that's also
05:20possibly why european countries for example many of them uh have declined the invitation to join it
05:28you mentioned a um common objective of participating in the board of peace by these arab countries is to
05:35address the humanitarian situation in gaza um are there other objectives do you see for them um pursuing
05:44this framework could there be ultimately competing strategic interests i'm curious to know specifically
05:51when how you see their role how they're hoping to shape um gaza's post-war political and economic future
06:00the main objective of the board of peace and the gaza peace plan is not
06:04just to alleviate the humanitarian suffering and alleviating the humanitarian suffering is
06:10the immediate and most urgent and that comes with a ceasefire but the 20-point plan and the board of
06:18peace and working with the trump administration is uh comes within um a larger um objective which is
06:26to create and to move towards a political horizon that doesn't make um the war in gaza or annexation
06:33of the west bank or frankly the attempts that have been made to put an end to the palestinian question
06:39and even the presence of the palestinians on the ground in gaza and the west bank to uh actually to
06:45interrupt all those attempts with uh some kind of political horizon or solution so it is not to the
06:53palestinians and to the arab states it is not a humanitarian conflict it is a military and
06:58political conflict but the most immediate and urgent need was the ceasefire was to stop the
07:04mass killing of palestinians and even on this it's still not achieved completely hundreds of palestinians
07:11have been dead since what we uh since the ceasefire was announced and since the plan was was announced
07:18going for the board of peace and maintaining the engagement with president trump remains as i said
07:23the main vehicle for that but the issue for the arab countries joining the board of peace is not just
07:31a humanitarian issue and beyond that it is also about working with the trump administration on um
07:39settling conflicts in the region because we uh i mean there is here in the munich security
07:47conference for example we've heard the saudi minister of foreign affairs saying that you know
07:51conflict breeds conflict and we have seen since october 7th that uh the war that erupted uh in gaza
07:59was not just contained in gaza it also spilled over into the west bank inside palestine but in the region
08:06it spilled over into lebanon syria yemen uh iran it got two missile attacks happening on qatar so the idea
08:16is not just to alleviate the humanitarian suffering the idea is to start by alleviating the immediate
08:22humanitarian suffering and then move to a political horizon a political solution for the israeli palestinian
08:28conflict as a whole and this is why you know the arab countries keep saying it is not just about
08:33gaza it is
08:34also about the west bank it is also about the palestinian state and from there to create a
08:41pattern to settle if you will uh the other conflicts but for now the word of peace remains about the
08:47israeli palestinian conflict and about um the palestine giving a horizon to the palestinians
08:53yasmine can i um can we briefly touch on the abraham accords it's been more than five years now since
08:59it
08:59was signed i'm curious how you are understanding how the genocide in gaza has affected some of the
09:07strategic calculus of these countries that have normalized relations with israel under the abraham
09:12accords there i mean there is a serious concern even in the countries that have normalized relations
09:20with israel about israel's expansionist agenda and how far israel is willing to go to fulfill its
09:27objectives and whether these objectives are just about the security of israel or is really about
09:33other plans from israel in the region that being said we have seen that mainly the two gulf countries
09:39that normalized relations with israel by joining the abraham accords in 2020 they maintained and i think
09:46it was um their political and strategic uh decision not to have the war in gaza uh have an impact
09:54on
09:54the relationship with israel and so we've seen that those relate trade relations have continued uh
10:00people-to-people relations have continued maybe less publicly but diplomatic relations have continued
10:06there were small gestures and small changes like for example the delay uh in uh the exchange of
10:14ambassadors for example between bahrain and uh israel but otherwise it was clear that there was a
10:20political and political and strategic decisions that these relations will continue from their point of
10:26view the existence and continuation of this of these relations allowed to have direct conversations
10:33with israel that other countries that did not normalize couldn't have but the impact of these direct
10:39conversations uh has remained very limited whether on the humanitarian side or in the military side of israel's
10:47operations um in gaza or even in the west bank or in the rest uh of the region or on
10:53israel's operations
10:55beyond uh israel's political operations in the region in general as we have seen most recently for
11:01example the recognition of somaliland so it's a double-edged sword it has allowed uh countries to
11:09have more access for example and in terms of humanitarian aid but it was never enough and politically and
11:15militarily the impact was really very minimal right let's talk about what's happening with the
11:21geopolitical landscape in the broader gulf it's experiencing quite a significant overt shift and
11:28i think for much of the past decade uae and saudi arabia's was seen as two uh very closely aligned
11:35strategic partners but analysts like yourself now are pointing to a growing divergence between the two
11:40you talk to me yasmin about how significant this shift is how you would characterize that relationship today
11:48look today there is really um i mean there is at least a rift in terms of what we have
11:56seen as
11:57a coalition or a very clear alignment in terms of policies in the region that started uh with
12:06the arab spring in 2011 with the arab revolutions when both saudi arabia and the uae uh expanded their
12:13intervention in the region to stabilize countries and to weigh in on political developments inside
12:19other arab countries to protect their own interests but also to contain uh some of the most uh actually
12:27most bloody civil wars that happened uh in in some of the countries in the region and we have
12:34seen this alignment continue but the i guess the moment where um this uh alignment we start uh we
12:42started seeing at least differences in this alignment was notably in 2019 when the uae uh decided to
12:50withdraw uh from the war in yemen there is definitely an economic competition between both countries however
12:56what we are seeing right now is not an expression of uh uh economic competition or even political
13:04competition it comes within uh a context where there are different visions of uh the tools that are being
13:14used for intervention in the region it comes within different visions of the red lines uh that need to be
13:21respected in terms of uh taking into consideration the national security concerns of different countries
13:27in uh the region it comes within uh a disagreement on uh the margin of autonomy uh when it comes
13:37to
13:37and the rights that every country has to have a different foreign policy in the region that does not
13:43necessarily follow the consensus of other countries uh and i think even though on the bilateral
13:49level we still haven't seen any kind of rift in terms of cutting diplomatic relations or cutting trade or
13:57commercial ties or anything that looks like the blockade of qatar that we have seen before uh it is um
14:05it is on potential path to reach there if the two countries do not have the frank conversation that is
14:13needed to set those rules and red lines and to clear uh a lot of issues of disagreement uh between
14:20them
14:21there is a lot of a regional uh shuttle diplomacy going on to try and to contain this rift but
14:28it is
14:28clear that from now on the alignment that some people who are i would say frankly kind of short-sighted
14:35saw as an alliance between the two countries is not going to be the same it is clear that when
14:41it comes to
14:42you for example the neighboring region whether the horn of africa the red sea yemen the relationship
14:48with israel uh that these two countries have differences and have make different political
14:54choices and it is now about managing those differences in a way that preserves the national
15:00security and the interests and also within the rules and norms established of international law
15:07well that that was a lot to unpack and uh definitely deeper kind of structural divergences within these
15:16um two countries can we can we delve deeper into that you mentioned that this there's there are
15:22different visions for um particularly with the tools used and if i may ask you about the persistent
15:28reports um of gulf states backing various non-state armed actors um in the conflicts of sudan in yemen
15:36libya um somalia talk to me about what these um tools or these strategic objectives serves for um for the
15:45countries for for uae in particular so there is um let's say uh an argument that is made that these
15:58conflicts have existed for a long time and that using the same tools over and over again or dealing with
16:05central governments that have proven to be too weak to solve conflicts or even to expand their
16:11controls over different states has shown has proven its failure uh and that new alliances new alignments
16:20new tools new partners should be uh explored in a way that allows um different countries to project
16:28their influences in those different countries that you mentioned particularly sudan where we have we are
16:35witnessing uh the the most dire humanitarian uh crisis in the world or even somalia or most recently
16:44uh in yemen uh there are established rules within uh not only the regional system and but also the
16:52international system about the respect for state sovereignty about uh the respect for the territorial
16:59integrity of states about the state's monopoly of the use of force uh and today these rules are being
17:08very much threatened by the practices and by the interventions in those different uh conflicts
17:16and also the militarization of uh those partnerships it's not just a question of having a political or economic
17:25relations with non-state actors or separatist uh states it's really also about the militarization of those
17:33relationship in a way that makes those militias and those non-state actors and or even some separatist states
17:41a platform for uh threatening the national security of neighboring countries but also uh let's say the last nail in
17:49the
17:49the coffin of the territorial integrity of states of a seeming of monopoly of power or of attempts to restore
17:57the monopoly of the use of force in a country like sudan for example it is hard to see uh
18:03how the fragmentation
18:05and how the diffusion of uh the arms and the use of force can help stabilize the region or can
18:13help reach and
18:14reach the objective of settling conflicts in those three countries and this is why we are really at a
18:20moment of reckoning where various states uh in the region especially the states neighboring uh you know
18:28countries like somalia uh like sudan and yemen those three very hot conflict spots are concerned not only about
18:37the future of those countries about how unmanageable it will become uh for them when it comes to the
18:45borders that they share and the threats to their national security but we are now faced with um a
18:51generalized uh threat of disintegration of states that will make it impossible to have one interlocutor in
18:59each state one partner with whom to work on conflict resolution or at least some kind of satellite
19:05well if we were to look at the red sea specifically how serious are you uh are the escalation risks
19:13across the red sea today asmin uh it is very serious because so part of this disintegration of states
19:21is the proliferation of weapon but also the smuggling of weapons of weapon technology of drugs of humans
19:28between the different militias and terrorist groups across the red sea so we have
19:34you know at crisis group we have been following the relationship between the houthis in yemen
19:38and al-shabab for example between you know the smuggling roads in areas of instability that go and
19:46feed into the conflict in uh sudan uh the the threat of not only smuggling weapons but the technology of
19:54weapons of experts across the red sea and we have seen how for example the houthis were able to uh
20:01uh paralyzed at least partially the maritime trade across uh the red sea how their missiles were
20:09reaching from yemen all the way up uh to israel so this is now this is at the heart of
20:16the question
20:16of the proliferation of weapons because of the existence of weak states and because of uh let's say
20:24the relations that or um the supply of arms and technologies to non-state actors and militias that
20:31eventually become very hard to control not only within the conflicts where they are acting but in terms
20:38of the relationships that they built in the countries that are around with non-state actors like them
20:44Yasmin what key indicators are you watching that will likely tell you whether these states are moving
20:51towards further disintegration as you mentioned whether the gulf is moving towards further or greater fragmentation
21:00i think again we we what we're witnessing today is that there are attempts to avoid um again another gulf
21:10crisis where we will see a rift and if you want a paralysis of uh at least a coordinated action
21:18uh on the political level uh even during the rift with qatar by the way during the blockade of qatar
21:25you had uh military relationships that continued and i think that um none of the countries today
21:32want to go back to this kind of rift hence we have seen many countries in the region within the
21:38gulf
21:38from outside the gulf trying to mediate so the level of tensions today doesn't allow me to exclude
21:44uh that this rift might actually get worse uh there is um there is at least a willingness and an
21:53intention
21:53uh not to see it become public and not see it become as uh bilateral as what we have witnessed
22:01with uh qatar
22:02uh in the most recent history in terms of gulf uh rifts uh but um it uh it is very
22:11serious and it is playing out
22:13across uh across uh the region and this explains why many parties from inside the gulf countries but
22:19also from outside the gulf countries are currently trying to contain those differences uh i think from
22:26now on we already couldn't really have a unified gulf policy on many of the conflicts in uh the region
22:35i think from now on those differences will be even uh bigger but what one could hope for is that
22:43as the
22:43differences get bigger there will be more serious conversations about how to coordinate uh in a
22:50minimum that around minimum let's say uh rules and norms that doesn't make uh you know the differences
22:59in terms of dealings with different conflicts become threatening to one state or uh the other
23:05right yasmine faruk there from the international crisis group wrapping up this episode of consider this
23:12i'm melissa idris signing off for the evening thank you so much for watching and good night
23:29thank you
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