Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Gulf state ministers Thursday as differences over Iran and a host of regional conflicts cloud the relationship between the countries.
Kerry faces an uphill battle as he tries to shore up support for resolving key conflicts in the region from the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council, a group of critical allies disappointed by what they see as a continued deterioration of their relationship with the U.S. amid Iran’s changing role in the region.
The secretary of state is paving the way for a summit between President Barack Obama and Gulf leaders in Saudi Arabia later this month
The U.S. wants to see the Gulf countries do more to take on ISIS, which it views as the paramount concern in the region.
But the Gulf states see Iran as the biggest regional threat, driving their stances on conflicts ranging from Syria to Yemen, and have expressed frustration that the U.S. hasn’t done more to oppose Iran after signing a landmark nuclear deal easing relations between the two historic enemies.
On the eve of his trip Monday, Kerry said the anti-ISIS coalition had made progress but that there was still work to do.
“There are still great hurdles ahead of us, and the fight — as we have seen in Brussels and Paris and Ankara and elsewhere — it continues to pose a threat,” said Kerry told reporters.
In Syria, a fragile ceasefire put in place February between regime forces and opposition fighters has largely held, but recent flare-ups have stalled talks on a political solution to end the Syrian conflict.
An aide traveling with Kerry said he will urge his Arab counterparts to use their influence with Syrian opposition leaders to adhere to the ceasefire.
Conflict in Syria
The differing approaches between the Gulf states and the U.S. on a path forward for Syria illustrates the disconnect between the allies over Iran.
The U.S. is fixated on defeating ISIS, which it sees as the most strategic threat. Washington’s public line is that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has to go, but has left the timeline of his departure vague.
Gulf nations, led by Saudi Arabia, are focused on Assad — an ally of arch-rival Iran — leave. They see allies and proxies of Iran, from Assad to Hezbollah to other Shia militias in the region, as a bigger strategic regional threat than the Sunni ISIS.
At the same time, Arab officials often say a lack of U.S. leadership to help end the Syrian civil war created the conditions for ISIS’ rise from the chaos in that country.
Obama disputed this notion in an interview with The Atlantic magazine last month. Speaking to writer Jeffrey Goldberg, Obama suggested U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf could be “free riders” eager to drag the U.S. into open-ended sectarian conflicts that sometimes did not dovetail with American interests.
Griping that the competition between Saudi Arabia and Iran was helping to feed proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, Obama said the two rivals “need to find an effective way to share the neighborhood and institute some sort of cold peace”
Experts say the remarks signaled a shift away from America’s long-standing policy of containing Iran toward one of rapprochement.
“Those comments were seen as particularly biting because, from the Gulf states’ perspective, Iran is the most destabilizing element in the region,” said Lori Plotkin Boghardt, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who specializes in Arab Gulf politics and U.S.-Gulf relations.
“For them, it was kind of like suggesting America shares their region with al Qaeda. It hit that hard and personally and showed the President doesn’t fully understand the concern they have with Iran’s activities and the impact it has on their own states,” she said.
The U.S., for its part, views the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, whose government is under attack from Iran-backed rebels, as a diversion of Gulf resources and political attention from the fight against ISIS.
U.S. officials privately grumble that the fighting has allowed al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — al Qaeda’s most deadly branch in the region — and ISIS to strengthen their gains in Yemen.
Washington initially endorsed the campaign against Houthi rebels. But Gulf officials have been frustrated that they haven’t received more support from the U.S. in their battle to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mandour Hadi to power.
The threat from Iran
Coupled with continued U.S. pressure to end the intervention, the Gulf sees it as yet another data point illustrating how the U.S. doesn’t understand the threat Iran and its proxies and allies pose to them, even as they have supported American operations in their region for years.
There are promising signs the fighting in Yemen could be drawing to a close. Government forces have agreed to a ceasefire starting on April 10, to be followed by peace talks in Kuwait the following week.
The U.S. hopes the fighting will cease and the Gulf states will apply their manpower once again to the campaign against ISIS.
Thursday’s talks will also review progress toward a set of commitments made last year at Camp David, where Obama held a summit of Gulf leaders soon after the sealing of the nuclear deal with Iran, in which its program was curbed in exchange for sanctions relief.
To reassure U.S. allies uneasy about the deal, the President pledged additional military aid and offered to help boost regional defense efforts on missile defense, cybersecurity and terrorism.
Senior State Department officials said progress has been made on the commitments. For example, the U.S. has expedited the sale and delivery of military equipment. But more work remains on how a regional missile defense could be deployed.
Still, differences over the threat posed by Iran persist.
In an op-ed published this week in the Wall Street Journal, the United Arab Emirates’ ambassador to the U.S., Yousef Al Otaiba, said Iran “is as dangerous as ever” and proposed a mechanism for the U.S. and its Gulf allies to “monitor, expose and curb Iran’s aggression.”
“This should include specific measures to block its support for the Houthi rebels in Yemen, Hezbollah units in Syria and Lebanon, and Iranian-linked terrorist cells in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain,” Otaiba wrote.
On Tuesday, Kerry disputed that Iran was “as dangerous as ever” but said that Iran must offer “clear decisions about the role it intends to play in the region and the world.”
Experts say that while the U.S. and its Gulf allies see eye to eye on the strategic threat posted by ISIS, al Qaeda and other extremism, the differences over Iran are unlikely to be narrowed before Obama leaves office.
Repairing the relationship, they say, will fall to the next U.S. president.
“Both sides need each other, and they still value the strategic relationship,” said Boghardt. “But there is continuing tension and I don’t think we can expect that to dissipate anytime soon.”