West Asia has an unusual knack of keeping the watchers and analysts on feet most of the times. On the one hand ongoing conflicts and hotspots in Yemen, Libya, Syria and Iraq keep one frustrated. And on the other simmering cinders of the Arab Spring keep the Arab Street charged up from Algeria to Lebanon to Sudan let alone the harbingers of the movement in Tunis and Egypt. Another important dimension was the heft for external intervention by various emerging power centres like UAE and Qatar while Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel maintain their pugilistic punches both outside and in undermining one another for ensuring their own pie of the regional and geo-political influence. But intra-GCC divergences and disputes have acquired greater salience in recent past as they began to follow mutually exclusive policies. Qatar’s blockade by Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Bahrain, even though partially normalised after 4 years, is instructive. The mediatory role of small states like Qatar and Kuwait in regional and extra-regional matters has become more prominent. Of late alleged divergences between Saudi Arabia and UAE have become a cause of concern while efforts for rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran on the one hand and Abraham Accords bringing the Jewish State closer to the Sunni Arab world have generated some hope for further normalisation.
Gulf – The Divergences in the Gulf Have Their Own Dynamic (Anil Trigunayat, VIF)
Related articles
