The arms race gathers pace

January 23, 2014
The West could help—or make it worse



© REUTERS/Fars News




No one can travel to the Gulf without becoming aware of the difference between the perspectives and values of the west and the Middle East. In the last two years, that has threatened to become a chasm. The US and Europe risk seriously misunderstanding the deep roots—and new causes—of the rising tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

They cannot afford to do so. The tension is triggering an arms race, and may yet prompt competition in nuclear capability. A fifth of world oil exports, and more than a third of all oil shipped by sea, moves through the Strait of Hormuz, along with large amounts of gas. Millions of barrels move through the Red Sea and more through Turkey. The global economy and that of every developed nation depends on the stability and security of this flow, and on its steady rise. No country could insulate itself from a crisis. Confident US talk of growing energy independence ignores recent official projections that in 2040, it will still import almost a third of its liquid fuels, while the economy depends even more on imports that rely on Gulf oil for their manufacture.

This picture resembles a game of three-dimensional chess without rules, where pieces often seem to move on their own. Only by appreciating its complexity will the US and European countries judge how they should best act.

There is nothing new about tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states—Kuwait, Iraq, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. It stretches back to the historic rivalry between Persia and the Arabs. It has roots too in the rift between the Sunni mainstream of Islam and the Shia branch, embraced in Iran. After the Second World War, Arab fears were aroused by the ambitions of the Shah of Iran, until he was deposed in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which then gave Iran new religious and revolutionary ambitions. Arab fears have been provoked since by Iran’s sporadic claims to Bahrain (its largely Shia population is ruled over by a Sunni elite supported by Saudi Arabia), and by the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran War and the “tanker war” of 1987-1988 that drew in the US, Saudi Arabia, and the other Arab Gulf states. For Iran’s part, these decades of war and tension, where Saudi Arabia often played a leading role, and the US, Britain and France struck up de facto military alliances with Arab states, have only deepened suspicion.

In the past few years, mutual fears have risen further, for at least half a dozen reasons. Some have strengthened Iran’s hand—not least, the threat posed by its nuclear programme, and then the recent apparent breakthrough in talks about its suspension. All of these new factors raise the question of the US’s intentions; answering that question would be a long step towards stability.

The Arab Spring

For what should be obvious reasons—but rarely seem to be so in the west—Saudi and other Gulf officials and military officers, and key members of the royal families, do not see the upheavals in the Arab world as some kind of “spring” or prelude to democracy and development. This is not simply a matter of a regime’s desire to survive. Most recognise the faults in their political systems, but also see the cost of upheaval in instability, economic crisis, refugees and human suffering.

They see US and European efforts as a key factor in the fall of Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak and the near chaos that followed. They see a lack of any concerted or useful US and European effort in Libya or Tunisia. In Bahrain and Saudi Arabia (albeit with a considerable Sunni bias), they see a focus on Shia rights that ignores the risk of violence and instability, and the role Iran has played in supporting such Shia actions—a role they sometimes exaggerate but which US and European intelligence experts and diplomats do feel exists.

Western experts may argue with considerable justification that the Arab upheavals have been the product of decades of authoritarian repression, weak governance, failed social policies, poor economic development and growing inequality, corruption and cronyism. Those points have been made equally clear by Arab experts in the Arab Human Development Reports issued by the United Nations Development Program. Yet Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies have valid reasons to see these upheavals as threats to them and to the remaining monarchies in Morocco and Jordan. They can argue that they were far better at meeting popular needs with their oil wealth than any of the Arab states (such as Egypt) with titular presidents and pseudo democracies. In their view, a western emphasis on “human rights” and “democracy” has done little more than devastate the nations affected.

In contrast, from Iran’s point of view, the Arab upheavals have been a help. It no longer faces a stable and largely hostile Egypt, and it has new chances to try to make use of the minority Shia populations in the Arab Gulf states and Yemen. It may face a greater threat now from Sunni extremism, but it has new opportunities in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.

Iran’s influence in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria

Saudi Arabia and its neighbours fear what King Abdullah II of Jordan has called the “Shia crescent”—a zone of growing Iranian influence from the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean. The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq not only destroyed a military counterweight to Iran, it led to the establishment of a Shia-dominated government (reflecting the country’s Shia majority) which has given Iran more influence in Iraq than the US now has. Saudi Arabia has adjusted its forces to deal with a potential threat from Iraq and Iran in the upper Gulf, and is building a security barrier along its entire 814km border with Iraq. It has also made plans for the risk that Iran might try to thrust through Iraq to move against Kuwait. While Saudi Arabia probably does not see these threats as likely, it cannot ignore them, and this helps explain why it has provided substantial amounts of military aid to Lebanon.

In Lebanon, Iran’s influence dates back to the foundation of Hezbollah, the paramilitary group which is now a force in national politics. In Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab states see the civil war as a nightmare that has created a humanitarian disaster and tied President Bashar al-Assad to Alawite and Iranian support. It has, they think, pushed Sunni rebels into jihadist extremism, and strengthened al Qaeda, posing a threat inside Saudi Arabia and Yemen. This has raised serious questions about the US’s credibility and humanitarian goals. These Arab leaders do not focus on the US and European effort to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons, but rather on the failure to back moderate rebel elements against Assad and to use cruise missiles.

And yet, while Iran has been strengthened by these shifts, it has fears of its own. Its gains are tenuous; Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon are not its proxies. They are allies—but only if this is clearly to their advantage. None take Iran’s revolution or its concept of a Supreme Leader seriously, and Syria’s Alawites are not Shia in any meaningful sense. As always in the Middle East, alliances are sometimes for rent but never for permanent sale.

Internal threats

Iran currently feels more secure than does Saudi Arabia against internal threats, despite deterioration in the economy and living standards. US efforts at regime change have had no real effect. President Hassan Rouhani, elected in June, may be a “moderate” but does not contest the Supreme Leader’s role. If anything, he is a lightning rod that defuses the legacy of his predecessor’s extremism. The “green revolution” which erupted on the disputed 2009 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been largely suppressed. No one takes seriously the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (People’s Mujahedin of Iran), a resistance group. Arab unrest in the southwest seems to have been fully suppressed; anti-regime elements in the southeast can muster only token violence.

In contrast, since 2003, Saudi Arabia has faced a real threat from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, one it has largely brought under control inside the kingdom but which has moved to Yemen. The other Arab Gulf states face threats from Sunni jihadist extremism, which has prompted them to build up security forces but also to make big efforts at job creation and meeting popular expectations. Rapid population growth has left many young men without jobs or with disguised unemployment; estimates run as high as 20-30% in Saudi Arabia. While Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE have enough wealth to buy off such tensions for at least the near term, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Bahrain do not.

The CIA estimates that Qatar is the wealthiest state in the world, in terms of per capita wealth, yet Saudi Arabia only 45th. It is a tribute to the Saudi royal family, technocrats, businessmen, and other members of the elite that they have reacted with massive investment and economic and educational reform. Many other Arab states have relied on rhetoric and let the situation grow worse. Some are in a worse predicament; Jordan ranks 147th, Iraq ranks 140th, and Yemen ranks 187th—all effectively face serious threats to stability.

And Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Yemen also face a further internal threat: they have significant Shia populations, and Bahrain has a Shia majority. Arab Gulf states may exaggerate the point, but US and European intelligence experts agree that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Ministry of Intelligence have supported Shia unrest, as in Bahrain and Yemen.

Israel

Israel’s relations with the US inject a further complexity—in a sense more awkward for Saudi Arabia than for Iran. Some Iranians really do oppose Israel’s right to exist and see its thermo-nuclear-armed missile forces as a serious threat, but many have seen it as a convenient political tool to justify Iran’s military build up, nuclear work, role in Lebanon and Syria, and its claim to Islamic legitimacy despite its Shia character.

In contrast, Saudi Arabia and the other Arab Gulf states have to live with the fact that the US is Israel’s closest and only major ally, with all the uncertainties this creates for US policy and arms sales. The Saudi and Arab League peace proposals for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have made it clear that they want a resolution, but not one that overlooks Palestinian concerns or questions of the Islamic status of Jerusalem. They view Secretary of State John Kerry’s new peace efforts with deep distrust; many see US efforts as doing little more than buying time for Israel to create new settlements on the West Bank.

The arms race

More tension has flowed from Iran’s steady build up of military strength in the Gulf, around the Strait of Hormuz and in the Gulf of Oman. Since June 2008, Iran has threatened to use its increasing number of mines, missile attack boats, Revolutionary Guard naval forces, submarines and undersea craft, and anti-ship missiles to “close the Gulf” if attacked by Israel or the US. While the US, Saudi Arabia, and the other Arab Gulf states could counter even the most determined Iranian effort, in the worst case it could take several weeks to reopen the Gulf.

The Iranian build up has been serious enough for the US to hold anti-mine warfare exercises, and to help Saudi Arabia and the other Arab Gulf states improve their defences; it has deployed a special forces command ship and base in the Gulf, and begun to restructure air and missile capabilities. It helps explain why the US transferred some $50.4bn worth of new arms deliveries between 2004 and 2011 to Arab Gulf states out of orders totaling $78.4bn, and why it has over $70bn of new orders in the pipeline. These will help give Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other Arab Gulf states some of the most advanced air combat, land-based air defence and naval warfare capabilities in the world.

Yet Iran is also building ballistic missiles that can attack targets throughout the Gulf. This is why almost all the Arab Gulf states have bought improved versions of the Patriot missile defence system and are examining options for far more advanced ones. It is why the US is deploying new missile defence ships in the Gulf and eastern Mediterranean. In turn, Iran is seeking to create more accurate systems that can attack critical infrastructure; it is also developing cruise missiles and armed drones.

As long as the US is a reliable ally of Saudi Arabia, Iran is not the “hegemon of the Gulf.” Iran has no truly advanced combat aircraft, only a limited number of early export versions of the MiG-29 and Su-24 and F-14s and F-4s left over from the time of the Shah. Its basic land-based air defence systems consist of versions of the US I-Hawk surface-to-air missile whose technology dates back to the Shah, and Russian and Chinese systems which date back to the Vietnam War.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE alone each have far more advanced combat aircraft such as the F-15, F-16, and Typhoon, in larger numbers. Both are quietly buying long-range precision strike systems. The US itself not only has carriers, but bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE and access to British facilities in Diego Garcia. It can deploy stealth strike aircraft; it also has a vast advantage in terms of naval systems, command and control systems, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

This combination of US, Saudi, and other Arab Gulf forces, with British and French support, offsets the Iranian advantage in asymmetric forces and missiles. It underpins deterrence and defence, and is a key force for stability. It compensates for the Gulf Cooperation Council’s failure to make more than largely cosmetic progress in coordinating Arab Gulf forces. Yet those limits on Arab states’ capability are stark—hence the deep concerns about whether they can rely on the US, and for how long.

The nuclear factor

Since Iran’s covert nuclear programme was exposed in 2002, the question of its nuclear ambitions has been a significant source of tension, as so, now, is the apparent progress in international talks. Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states do not give as much weight to the threat as do the US and EU—but that does not mean they do not see it as real. Ironically, talk in Israel about the “existential threat” from Iran would be more appropriate in Saudi Arabia or Arab Gulf countries; they lack nuclear weapons, and have small populations and only a few key targets, whereas Israel has the ability to launch nuclear warheads against every Iranian city.

The fact any such Iranian capability is at least several years away does not diminish the role of nuclear threats in the tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are deeply concerned that Iran might actually deploy a nuclear force that could offset the US-Arab superiority in conventional forces or the credibility of their deterrent. Some key Saudi voices have pushed for a weapons of mass destruction free zone. At the same time, Saudi Arabia has upgraded its ballistic missile forces and expanded its launch areas. Prince Turki al-Faisal, one key strategic thinker, has said that the Saudis are considering a nuclear option; some analysts feel that Pakistan might sell them nuclear weapons.

For the US’s part, it has done more than negotiate; it has repeatedly said it will not tolerate Iranian deployment of nuclear weapons and has refined its military options for preventive strikes (informally confirmed by officers in the staff of the US joint chiefs.) Israel also has clearly planned more limited forms of preventative strikes. Hillary Clinton, when Secretary of State, offered to give the Arab Gulf states the same kind of extended nuclear deterrence that the US once offered Europe in 2008 on 29th August 2009. However, the recent apparent progress in nuclear talks with Tehran has not eased tensions; it has brought more strain, by seeming to open channels between Iran and the US, to the alarm of Saudi Arabia. The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—the US, UK, France, China and Russia—together with Germany, have tried to persuade Iran to freeze nuclear work, in return for lifting some sanctions.

If one talks to Iranians, some have real hope that the talks will end sanctions and open the way to a more progressive regime. Yet many who want that still deeply distrust the US and the west, and see Iran as under threat when it should be the leading power in the Gulf. Others, more hardline, such as clerics and officers in the Revolutionary Guards, feel the US and Europe will accept nothing less than drastic regime change, and US and Arab dominance.

On the Arab side, some feel that a lasting détente with Iran may be possible. Yet no one can attend an Arab conference on Gulf security without encountering many Arab scholars and experts who really believe the US is engaged in a secret dialogue, if not plot, to create an alliance with Iran, betray its Arab allies, and back Shias instead of Sunnis. The more sophisticated and informed leaders and officials do not share these conspiracy theories, but still have real fears about how US actions now affect their interests. Saudi distrust was reflected in its refusal last year to take up its turn on the UN Security Council, to US astonishment.

There are no easy ways to deal with the forces that divide Iran and Saudi Arabia and threaten the stability of a region so critical to the global economy. It is all too easy to call for regional conferences, more arms control talks and treaties, more dialogue and confidence building measures, and trust in the good intentions of all involved. So far, that has led to remarkably little progress.

Some things are clear, however. A truly successful nuclear agreement with Iran could have a powerful impact in eliminating the most dangerous longer-term threat in the region. Firm insistence on a real and verified Iranian elimination of its nuclear weapons efforts would go a long way towards creating military stability, just as ending sanctions and establishing normal relations would greatly ease Iranian concerns. This will take at least a year, but it is a beginning. US efforts to reassure Saudi Arabia and others that it will not turn to Iran and will sustain its military alliance will be critical to their willingness to deal with Iran and forego the pursuit of nuclear weapons. Such efforts have begun, with Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel’s visit to the Gulf in December. As he pointed out, the US increased its commitment to Arab states in 2012. It will deliver some $70bn more of advanced arms, and its strategy documents give the Middle East the same priority as Asia. Yet these are reassurances that it now needs to repeat and publicise, together with Britain and France.

The US and Europe need to stop seeing political upheavals as a brief prelude to the triumph of western values and democracy, and focus on their human impact and the threat they pose. It means accepting that years of effort will be needed with unstable states and changing regimes. It means understanding the depth of the threat of the religious struggles within Islam and of violent religious extremism. Finally, it means all sides need to begin to find a credible negotiated security structure in the Gulf that can ease the current arms race. It may take years before serious talks are possible, but they are needed to produce more trust between Iran and Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, and gradually reduce Arab reliance on the US and European presence without provoking new Arab fears or empowering Iran. This may take a decade, and a real nuclear agreement with Iran is an essential precondition. It is, however, the only strategic goal that can ensure lasting security and stability.