The Gulf Between Ambition and Capability
Perhaps the countries whose economies are most directly linked to the Straits of Hormuz should take care of the Straits of Hormuz
Before I start, it feels important to state some obvious truths. The Trump-Netanyahu war on Iran (and its allies in Lebanon) is an undertaking of epic, bizarre stupidity. There appears to be no realistic chance that it results in the seizure of Iran’s enriched uranium or the downfall of the Islamic Republic. In that sense, any talk of “disarming” the Islamic Republic is pointless - it is currently showing its ability to fight fairly successfully with low-tech Shahed drones which can easily and cheaply be manufactured. Unless the USA envisages a permanent state of war with Iran (not the “two to three weeks” that Trump promises us) there is no disarming of Iran likely to result from the current crisis.
The main outcome of the war appears to have been the transformation of the Straits of Hormuz from a sensitive potential flashpoint in world trade to an actual flashpoint which appears also to have become an Iranian tollgate. Trump’s great military achievement is to give the Islamic Republic future control of energy flows from the Persian Gulf into the wider world.
As listeners to my podcast episode with Thom Reilly will be aware, as much as Trump says this isn’t his problem (“we don’t use their oil” - he is clearly not signed up to the ‘Pottery Barn Rule’1), it probably is his problem. Oil from the Persian Gulf is shipped to Asia for refining, and then exported globally as refined product - petrol, diesel, aviation fuel and so on. The US does not have enough refineries of its own to meet its needs for refined product, and nor do its refineries actually specialise in refining the oil the that US produces. Oops. It is not clear whether Trump knows this. He certainly doesn’t want to talk about it publicly.
But let’s just run with Trump’s thinking for the moment: he notes that the US is the world’s largest producer of oil and gas and it is physically quite a long way from the Middle East. As Trump put it, “the countries of the world that do receive oil through the Hormuz strait must take care of that passage.” It’s easy to see why this option hasn’t really appealed to those countries that haven’t participated in the attack on Iran, but you can see the argument, a classic bully perspective.
But in all this discussion of the role of outsiders in forcing Iran to allow shipping through the Straits, there is one group of countries that is oddly overlooked. A group of countries that are powerful, wealthy, militarily well-equipped and even more directly impacted by these events than we Europeans. I am of course, talking about the Gulf Countries (specifically the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council - GCC: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates).
What are the two things that everyone knows about GCC members? They make money from oil and they spend a lot of it on weapons, especially high-end, western manufactured weapons. As a result, the GCC is one of the most heavily armed places in the world. Saudi Arabia in particular has a huge military budget, air forces that are larger than the UK’s, a very large army and national guard. If you look at Saudi Arabia’s defence budget, it is similar to that of the UK and slightly larger than France’s. But don’t forget that the Saudis have no nuclear deterrent, so that - very expensive - element of the UK and France’s defence system would not feature an any analysis of Saudi defence expenditure. Even smaller GCC countries such as the UAE have considerable defence resources. For example, the UAE’s defence budget is about 30% larger than that of Norway, a country with a similarly-sized economy. These military budgets completely dwarf those of Iran.
“Go get your own oil,” Trump has said of countries wanting to see the Straits of Hormuz reopened. But he hasn’t addressed this message to the GCC nations. Is this because he doesn’t want to ruin his relationship with countries that are spending a lot of money in America and also with Trump personally (in particular, there are direct financial links between the UAE’s ruling family and Trump’s crypto business as well as between Jared Kushner and the Saudis). That might explain Trump’s reluctance to press the GCC countries to act in the same way that he loves to attack the Europeans, but it doesn’t explain why the GCC countries themselves aren’t willing to put together a force to free up the Straits.
Not just the Straits, but tackling Iran itself. For the Sunni Arab Gulf monarchies, a sectarian distaste for Shi’a Iranians has been an animating cause, not least because Shi’a populations in the GCC countries are regarded with suspicion by their Sunni rulers. For example, Saudi Arabia has beheaded hundreds of its Shi’a citizens, including those arrested as children, for such unforgivable crimes as protesting against the government. This is anathema to secular liberals such as myself, but if you are running a sectarian autocracy there would seem to be a certain logic in GCC countries taking the fight to Iran which may be fomenting opposition to your rule. Indeed, according to various well-sourced media reports, Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman has been urging the United States to ramp up attacks on Iran. Perhaps he should join in? After all, on paper, the GCC’s combined military equipment, manpower and urgent shared regional interest in reopening the Straits and subduing Iran make them a ready-made coalition for such an operation.
On paper. And there’s the rub. Whilst it’s clear that the GCC countries’ expensive air defence systems are doing the job in keeping most people safe from Iranian attacks, it’s also clear that these countries, armed with state of the art equipment, don’t have militaries that are capable of securing their own territory or neutralising threats in their region. For countries that have spent hundreds of billions on Western weapons and on paying Westerners to train their armed forces, this might seem a poor return on investment. If these countries allowed their populations a say, they might also want to know how so much money has been spent, to so little effect.
One might defend the Gulf states on the basis that this wasn’t the model: they are not supposed to defend themselves, we are supposed to defend them in return for access to cheap hydrocarbons (the so-called Carter Doctrine - in which he stated: “An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.” We might call Trump’s crude version of this the Get Carter Doctrine.) However, that model has already been broken. In 2022, when world oil prices spiked as a result of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, both President Biden and a host of other world leaders implored MBS to pump more oil to stabilise prices. He refused. The message from MBS was clear - this is not my problem. Well, this time around, the Straits of Hormuz is very much his problem, as well as being ours. The question is, how much blood and treasure are the GCC countries willing to expend in protecting their own economic interests?
Put simply: you break it, you buy it. In the George W Bush era this was seen as applying to foreign military actions of the United States. No longer.