ORTA DOĞU VE KUZEY AFRİKA - Deneme Sınavı - 6

Gulf countries have been divided into two different, mostly competing camps in terms of foreign policy choice. While Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain are acting together in their policies towards the Middle East, Qatar, Kuwait, and Oman have been following diverging policies.

The Arabian Peninsula consists of seven countries, the majority of which have rich oil and natural gas resources. Among them, six of them are the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), an organization that was established in 1981. The GCC countries consisting of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain have become the most important actors of Middle East politics in recent years.

Pearl Square is the square where anti-government protests gathered in 2011 as part of the popular uprising in Bahrain. Bahrain witnessed the biggest popular protests among the Gulf states during the 2011 Arab uprising period. The protests were suppressed with the intervention of Saudi army.

The Iran-Iraq war was a milestone in Middle Eastern geopolitics. There are two reasons for describing the war as a "unique" one. First, the war lasted more than the two World Wars. Second, it was a hybrid war in which the use of missiles, chemical weapons, and attacks on oil tankers were witnessed. Due to the use of such instruments, the conflict would also be called as "Tanker War".

Qatar, which differs from the countries in the Gulf region in terms of foreign policy line, has maintained this difference during the Arab revolutions period as well. Considering the popular uprisings in the region as the beginning of a transformation towards democratization, Qatar supported revolutionary initiatives in Tunisia, Libya, Syria, and especially in Egypt. During the process, it can be said that Qatar played a role in the success of the revolutionary processes through unconventional foreign policy instruments rather than through conventional methods. The most important of these tools is the al-Jazeera channel, which allowed revolutionary demonstrations to reach a large audience.

The revolutionary process in Egypt has been the most visible example of the intervention of Gulf States during the Arab uprising developments. Particularly Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates were the most aggressive foreign policy actors during the counter-revolution process in Egypt.

Qatar's primary motivations in its active role in the Syrian conflict can be identified firstly as increasing its influence in the region, and secondly hoping that its active role in conflict resolution would help to materialize its energy ambitions in the area.

In contrast with Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, another playmaker in the Gulf, Qatar has supported the legitimate government of Libya, which represents Libyan people. To cut off arms supplies to Khalifa Haftar and to prevent Haftar's forces from gaining the upper hand in the Libyan conflict, Qatar has supported UN-oriented peaceful resolution of the conflict.

The anti-regime protests that started in 2011 in Yemen turned into a conflict environment in which regional actors were heavily involved. By 2014, clashes accelerated when anti-government Houthi militias took over the capital city Sana'a. Upon these developments, President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi issued a letter that addressed the United Nations General Assembly and called for an intervention to prevent this crisis in Yemen. In response, the Arab Coalition, led by Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates launched the Decisive Storm Operation in 2015. Thus, the Gulf States' intervention in the Yemen crisis started.

Although there are no formal bilateral relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, rapprochement between these two in progress. There are several pushing factors behind this logic. Due to the Barack Obama administration's nuclear agreement with Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel began to worry about the increasing influence of Tehran in the region. Secondly, the Arab Revolutions destabilized the region, which undermined the interests of the countries above that would like to preserve the status quo. Both countries' perception towards the rise of "moderate Islam", which is mostly represented by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the close relations with the Doland Trump administration can be considered as other factors that bring Riyadh and Tel Aviv together.

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