Vol. 81/No. 4      January 23, 2017

 

UK prime minister courts Gulf monarchs

 
The Gulf Cooperation Council — composed of leaders of the Sunni-led Gulf monarchies in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — met Dec. 6-7 in Bahrain. Central to the agenda was how to confront the growing strength and reach of Shiite-led Tehran. Discussion ranged from the war in Yemen, where a Tehran-backed insurgency is fighting Saudi forces, to Iraq and Syria, where Shiite militias and Iranian troops are active.

British Prime Minister Theresa May attended and addressed the conference. All the Gulf autocracies are former British colonies.

She offered the services of British imperialist forces in boosting “security” for the rulers in the Gulf, and pledged London would help “push back against Iran’s aggressive regional actions, whether in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Syria or in the Gulf itself.”

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei responded to May’s trip, accusing Britain and the United States of seeking to provoke conflicts among the main Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam. “The old British policy of ‘divide and conquer’ is seriously on the agenda of Islam’s enemies,” he said.

For London, the meeting also provided an opportunity to advance the fortunes of U.K. capital. “As the U.K. leaves the EU, we should seize the opportunity to forge a new trade arrangement between the U.K. and the Gulf,” May said. British exports to the Gulf states were £22 billion ($27 billion) in 2015, higher than U.K. exports to China and more than double those to India. The BBC reported London hopes to boost trade to $38 billion over the next five years.

“Gulf security is our security, your prosperity is our prosperity,” she told the monarchs.

At the same time, Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell signed an agreement with Tehran to cooperate in developing Iranian oil and gas fields.

The U.K. was a party to the 2015 deal forged by Washington and Tehran to limit Iran’s nuclear development. Shortly afterwards London and Tehran reopened embassies in their respective countries. They had been shuttered after violent protests outside the British Embassy in Tehran in 2011.
 
 
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