Why the Gulf matters

Why have events in the Gulf and the wider Middle East always mattered?

The simple answer is that the region has long been of great strategic importance. Historically, it was a key trading route and by the nineteenth century, control of the region (and keeping Russian influence to a minimum) helped protect the jewel in Britain’s crown: India. It also sits close to the Suez Canal which was opened in 1869, linking Europe to its colonies and markets in Asia. Later, the canal would bring oil to Europe from the Gulf States. Today, oil is the critical factor. But from 1948 we need to add another factor into the wider equation: the presence of Israel, a nation that Europe and America felt morally obliged to support but at the cost of taking land from the Palestinians and at the cost of the bitter hostility of Arab nations.

Middle East oil also became increasingly important as the world increased its dependency on oil and as doubts began to grow over the remaining capacity of America’s own oil fields. In 1943 America sent a team to assess the oil reserves in the region, and one member reported back saying that it was ‘the greatest single prize in all history.’ And he was proven right as the production of oil almost doubled between 1940 and 1950, and almost doubled again between 1950, and 1960, the share of the world’s total oil produced in the Middle East rose from a little under 5% in 1940, to 17% in 1950, and to 52% by 1960. And when in 1973 the OPEC countries of the Middle East enforced an oil embargo on America and the West in response to America’s support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War, prices rose four-fold leading to petrol shortages, power cuts and much reduced industrial production. All this served to show how reliant on Gulf oil Western economies had become and so, how vulnerable they were.

After WW1, Syria and the Lebanon had become French mandates, supposedly overseen by the League of Nations but effectively treated like French colonies. Iraq became a British mandate (as too did Palestine). Kuwait was an independent state but so strong was Britain’s influence that it was Britain that had determined its borders with Iraq and Saudi Arabia. British influence was also strong in Iran. Its oilfields were owned by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Saudi Arabia was more independent but acknowledged British influence in the region as a whole. Not a Gulf state but a neighbour, Transjordan was an independent state but again, Britain had a strong influence. Similarly, neighbouring Egypt, sitting across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia, was an independent state but was obliged to accept British garrisons and bases.

But WW2 transformed the picture almost entirely. As in North Africa and South East Asia, France’s defeat at the hands of Germany in 1940 undermined its authority and Syria and the Lebanon gained their independence in 1947. In Syria the Baath Party was formed, or reformed, and took power in 1952 with a programme for pan-Arab nationalism and socialism. Its name signifies Arab rebirth or renaissance and its motto was ‘Unity, Liberation and Socialism’. It of course, stood opposed to the imperial powers and to the Israeli state too. A Baath Party was also formed in Iraq and it had branches in other Arab states too.

However, France retained a sense of responsibility towards its former mandates which means that it remains involved in the region to this day. At the same time, however, the experience of the Holocaust left France feeling a sense of responsibility with regard to Israel and it has been an important supporter of Israel, supplying it with arms since the birth of the state. In the wider region, Algeria, and the French problems with the colony (as was), although a North African country led France to oppose Egypt as it was suspicious that the Algerian nationalists were receiving support from Egypt.

At the same time, Britain had found the mounting problems in Palestine, with Jewish and Palestinian claims over the same land, too difficult to handle and announced in 1947 that it would withdraw from its mandate, handing it over to the UN in 1948. However, the Middle East was of vital importance to Britain because of its oil which Britain has increasingly relied upon for its energy (electricity as well petrol). The region was also important for British prestige. Rightly or wrongly, Britain came to see a presence in the Middle East as a symbol that it remained a major power in the world. Thus Britain’s influence in the region, its military bases in Egypt, Jordan and Iraq, as well as the Baghdad Pact, were all important to Britain. The Baghdad Pact was originally an alliance between Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran and Britain (America joined the military committee of the alliance in 1958 and Iraq left in 1959 and it became known as CENTO, the Central Treaty Organisation). It was directed against the Soviet Union.

As the Cold War developed, America gave its support to the Baghdad Pact but its main concern as far as the Middle East was concerned was oil. It supported Israel, partly because it was committed to Zionism but also because key states in American elections, New York for example, could be decided by the Jewish vote. Of course, this left America balancing its support of Israel with, for example, support for Saudi Arabia or Iraq. Not an easy position to be in.

As for the Soviet Union, whilst Stalin led it their only interest in the Middle East was to keep a wary eye on Islam. The Soviet Union’s central Asian states were Islamic and they were concerned lest Islam encourage a nationalist push to breakaway (that’s why they got involved in Afghanistan for most of the 1980s). They did support the Israeli state though. However, after Stalin’s death in 1953, the Soviet Union exploited the opportunities that the Middle East presented to unsettle America and the West and to seize any strategic advantage it could. For example, it seized on differences with the West to support Egypt and, later, Syria.

Meanwhile, as we have already seen, Arab nationalism was a growing force: nationalism in the form of national independence for the separate states and, at the same time, pan-Arab nationalism or unity of all Arabs. The Arab League, which was set up in 1945, consisting of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, was an attempt to co-ordinate their forces. For example, it presented a united Arab position in the United Nations, and cooperation in the face of common enemies: imperialism and the state of Israel. However, the Arab nations were divided more than they were united. Divided between conservative forces that sought to adhere closely to the principles of Islam and traditional Arab culture, and modernisers who were prepared to take on board Western ideas, be it from the capitalist or the Marxist camps. There were also national leaders who, in very different ways, sought to set themselves up as leaders of the Arab world.

As the newly independent states tried to modernise they became dependent on the West in a different way: loans, either from the World Bank, direct from Western countries, notably America (though also the Soviet Union). It also led to the temptation to nationalise their assets, like the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in Iran in 1951 or the Suez Canal Company in Egypt in 1956. It led to a volatile political situation, again in Egypt and Iran, but also in Iraq. And all the time, the presence of the Israeli state unsettled the region, and as more and more oil fields came into production, oil too would have a major impact.

We have noted that the war had done much to reduce British and French prestige in the region, defeat at the hand of Hitler for France and Britain’s inability to manage the Palestinian mandate after the war. Britain would also lose its influence in Iran. But what finally ended British and French prestige and authority in the region was the fiasco over the Suez Canal in 1956. The canal was French built and France had played a major part in financing it and the company was based in Paris, though when the company ran into difficulties, the British government bought out the Egyptian shares and took administrative control of the canal in 1882 at a time when Egypt was a British protectorate.

For Britain, the canal had quickly become a vital link both for oil from the Gulf states and as the shortest route to India and South East Asia. However, in 1956, Nasser nationalised the canal after he was denied loans from America and Britain to build a massive dam, the Aswan Dam, on the Nile. Though the shareholders were promised compensation, Nasser’s nationalisation of the canal ended British control. Britain felt it had to make a stand or else its status as a great power would be over. France was also opposed to Nasser as they believed he was helping to finance the nationalist cause in Algeria, at that time constitutionally a part of France. Britain and France also saw Nasser as another Hitler and if he was allowed to get away with nationalising the canal there was no knowing what he would do next. He had to be stopped.

What ensued was a French-Israeli plan whereby the Israeli’s would attack Egypt across the Sinai desert and the British and French would intervene ostensibly to restore peace but in fact to seize back control of the canal. The Israeli’s had good reason to get rid of Nasser (he had already led one attack on them) and they were supplied by French arms. At first everything went to plan but it quickly all went badly wrong. America demanded that the British and French troops be withdrawn and Israel cease its attack. Diplomatic pressure forced them to comply. The consequences were profound. Britain largely subordinated its foreign policy to that of America; France moved toward European union and set out to develop an independent nuclear deterrent which it did. Nasser became the hero, and for a short while, the leader of the Arab world.

So you can see that the Gulf and the wider Middle East region has long been very important to the rest of the world. Important as a trade route, important because of its oil, important as an area of potential conflict in the Cold War, and important because of the need to accommodate Arab nationalism, the growing importance of Islam and at the same time Israel, into the world order,