http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/kuwait/Viewdet.asp?ID=9887&cat=a
7th Mar 2007 : Web Edition No:12814
Editor-in-Chief: Ahmed Jarallah
GCC must have joint strategy to face foreign threats: Kuwait; ‘US-Iran
conflict limits Gulf role in Iraq’
ABU DHABI (KUNA) : Kuwaiti Chief of Staff Air Marshal Fahd Hamad Al-Amir
on Tuesday called on member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
to endorse a joint national defense strategy aimed at facing up to any
foreign threats. Al-Amir, in an address delivered on his behalf by the
Head of the Joint Army Operations Staff Brigadier Ahmad Rahmani,
underlined the “close relations among security, stability, development
and growth.” Rahmani, who represented Kuwait during the second day of
the GCC Conference on Domestic and Foreign Challenges, called on GCC
member states and other countries overlooking the Arab Gulf to take
adequate measures restoring confidence among themselves as a prelude to
agreeing on a protocol of defense for Gulf waters.
Al-Amir called on GCC states to complete the restoration of GCC military
capability and consolidate the strength of the Peninsula Shield through
agreeing on a joint military strategy aimed at facing up to any
challenges and bridging the gap between Iran and its Arab neighbors and
between Iran and the international community specifically with regard to
the Iranian nuclear activities. Al-Amir called on GCC member states to
work on developing a joint economy and a common currency and continuing
their efforts aimed at achieving political, administrative and economic
reforms. He also called for helping to consolidate the ongoing political
process in Iraq through the restoration of law and order in that country.
He stressed that GCC states were facing several domestic challenges
headed by demographic issues, which were to blame for political and
economic problems as well as others associated with security and linked
to the presence of a large proportion of foreign workers on GCC soil. He
also cautioned against the aggravation of the “growing fundamentalist
threat” and added that GCC states have adopted a common anti-terrorism
strategy. He pointed out that the fall of the former Iraqi regime has
removed a “serious threat to the stability of GCC states” but the
resulting unrest in Iraq was seriously undermining the stability of
other GCC states and preventing Iraq’s integration with its environment.
He said that the Iranian nuclear issue represented a serious challenge
to the stability of the area and was pushing it towards more unrest, But
he cautioned that “we believe in the right of countries to acquire any
technology allowed under international standards.” The conference deals
with GCC regional relations and defense against the background of the
current regional tension. Discussions are due to focus on such hot
issues as Iran, Iraq and GCC security bearing in mind that the issues of
both Iraq and Iran supersede all others as far as the security of the
Gulf is concerned. Other issues include the US and EU interests in the
GCC area and analyzing the impact of the presence of foreign troops on
the area as a whole. The conference is being attended by a group of
military experts and decision-makers with wide experience in
international relations.
Meanwhile, the acting President of the Washington-based Middle East
Institute (MEI) David Mack said that the prime objective of the US
strategy in the area was to “prevent any force from imposing its
hegemony on the GCC area.” He called for a joint US-GCC agenda “based on
mutual interests of the two sides specifically with regard to oil the
security of oil shipments.” He recalled the history of foreign threats
on the gulf similar to that of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. He
also called on the US not to rely solely on military force to dissuade
such threats. He said the US had not devoted sufficient attention to the
worsening Palestinian-Israeli conflict and recalled that US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice had said in an address in Kuwait that it was
important to resolve that conflict as a prerequisite for achieving
regional peace (in the GCC).
He added that the theory that the fall of former Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein would speed up the stability of the area was wrong as the US was
wrong in thinking it could rally its Arab friends against Iran without
addressing the Palestinian plight. Another speaker, Dr. John Peterson,
called on the US and GCC states to admit that their mutual interests
would be better-served through long term defense strategies. Peterson,
who is a researcher at the MEI, underlined the importance of the
presence of US forces in consolidating the GCC regimes.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is incapable of playing a role in
Iraq because it is “weak link” vis-a-vis the US-Iran conflict in that
nation, said a Kuwaiti academic on Monday.
Speaking during the second session of the Arabian Gulf Security-Internal
and External Challenges conference, political sciences professor at
Kuwait University Dr. Abdullah Al-Shayji explained that the aftermath of
Iraq’s liberation war created a number of negative factors against the
region’s security. While saying the US role was the reason behind
turning Iraq into a nation qualified for failure, he said the Iranian
role was to undermining Iraq’s stability.
After four years of war, Iraq is still witnessing a grueling war,
instability and sectarian strife, with the most devastating outcome the
US talking about defeat in Iraq, he stressed. Iraq’s war, he added, has
great consequences on the region, such as the feeling of some officials
that the US has lost part of its strength because failure in Iraq was
followed by a setback in Afghanistan which has encouraged anti-US
nations to exploit such a weakness. He said Iran is feeling grand
because its interests are being served in Iraq because the US is
occupying Iraq, but Iran keeps on achieving gains, especially in
southern Iraq.
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