It is difficult to predict where the recent military operations will lead. However, it is almost certain that an aggressive treatment of the Arab Gulf countries may reassert itself, just as it did in the last war. Back then, observers were astonished that those countries received from Tehran many times the number of strikes that Israel received. The fact is that in Iran's view, the Gulf states are a set of 'Western interests in the region,' with no regard for peoples, states, economies, or neighborly considerations. In the same sense, it does not change the matter that those countries opposed the war and rushed into de-escalation and attempts to mediate between the warring parties.

But can a comprehensive meaning be derived from this view of the Gulf and the behavior resulting from it?

History may tell us something useful. The region in question has been embroiled, since the end of World War II, in three wars, although the current one is the largest.

The first was the Yemen War, which erupted as a result of Abdullah al-Sallal's coup in 1962 against Imam al-Badr and the Mutawakkilite Kingdom, a war that lasted eight years. At the time, Nasser's Egypt sent 70,000 troops to Yemen, and that step, in threatening the traditional balances known to the region, was the most important reason for linking the Yemen War to the Cold War. With such a transformation, the dimension that could be described as progressive in al-Sallal's coup—namely ending Yemen's isolation from the world and breaking the old system—diminished, so that a complex conflict prevailed, civil and tribal on the one hand, and regional and international on the other.

Three years later, while the Vietnam War was raging, the terms 'Egypt's Vietnam' and 'Nasser's Vietnam' emerged to describe Yemen.

Naturally, it was not possible to raise one's voice in Nasser's Egypt in objection to the military intervention in Yemen. However, two prominent 'Free Officers,' Abdel Latif al-Baghdadi and Kamal al-Din Hussein, resigned from their positions, and the latter was placed under house arrest. But after Nasser's departure, critical voices began to be heard: according to critics, the intervention imposed heavy financial burdens on Egypt, pushed its army into difficult fighting in rugged mountainous areas, dragged it into a protracted war, and dispersed it across vast geographical areas, draining resources that could have been saved for confronting Israel, in the prevailing political language of the time.

Indeed, the 1967 defeat came while the war was raging in Yemen. However, with the Khartoum Summit Conference, two and a half months later, an Egyptian-Saudi reconciliation took place through a meeting between Nasser and King Faisal bin Abdulaziz, and the Egyptian withdrawal began, which was completed the following year. However, the internal grudges generated by the war delayed its tribal end by three years beyond the end of its regional causes, so it did not stop completely until 1970.

As for the second war, it was initiated by Saddam Hussein's invasion of the State of Kuwait in the summer of 1990, which in turn became a major international event.

Saddam claimed that Kuwait was producing an oil surplus that led to a drop in Iraqi oil prices, linking his argument to an expansionist nationalist lexicon that justified 'returning the branch (Kuwait) to the root (Iraq)' and labeling the small state 'the nineteenth Iraqi governorate.' In turn, the circle of fears expanded about Saddam's intentions, which might cause further military thrust southward, threatening the global economy with its sources and arteries, and the stability of international borders alike.

It was natural for this behavior to lead to a global mobilization that resulted in an alliance of 39 countries and 900,000 troops. The 'Desert Shield' operation indeed expelled the invaders and liberated Kuwait. But Saddam, before his surrender, chose to launch 39 Scud missiles, militarily ineffective, at Israel. The goal—which, of course, was not 'the liberation of Palestine'—was to bet on an Israeli response that would embarrass the Arab countries participating in the alliance and push them to leave it, but the United States cut off that possibility by deterring Israel from retaliating.

But Saddam also wanted to leave his aggressive marks on the Gulf, so he directed 90 missiles toward Saudi Arabia, which also had little effect. Even after the surrender in Safwan tent, the withdrawing Iraqi army set fire to hundreds of Kuwaiti oil wells.

Searching for common denominators among the three regimes—Nasser's, Saddam's, and Khomeini's—may help clarify the warlike phenomenon targeting the Gulf. These regimes, despite many differences, share hatred for a principle that the Gulf states have operated under and which has yielded them assured fruits: establishing a normal relationship with the world and using oil revenues in a manner different from their use in the rich countries ruled by militarists and radicals of various kinds.

As for the destructive consequences that afflict everyone, including the perpetrators of aggression themselves, and subsequently linking the region to international elements larger than it and impossible to control, these are two other common denominators that the eye of an objective observer cannot miss.

As quoted from Asharq Al-Awsat

Advertorial

Advertorial

Disclaimer: All published articles represent the views of their authors only.