Context: The persian gulf region has the presence of the major producers of crude oil and natural gas, and thereby contributing critically to the global economy. 
Key Points

• Indian interests would be best served if this stability is ensured through cooperative security since the alternative — of competitive security options — cannot ensure durable peace.
• Thus, maintaining peace in the geopolitically significant region through cooperative security by the regional members and major world economies is one of the best solutions to stabilize the region politically and economically.

Importance of countries surrounding Persian Gulf

• The United Nations defines this body of water as the Persian Gulf.
• The lands around it are shared by eight countries: Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
• All are the members of the UN.
• There is a commonality of interest among them in being major producers of crude oil and natural gas.
• And thereby contribute critically to the global economy and to their own prosperity.
• This has added to their geopolitical significance.
• At the same time, turbulence has often characterised their inter se political relations.
• These countries are the major oil and natural gas producers of the world bringing prosperity to their economies and helping the global community to meet its energy needs. This has added to the region’s geopolitical significance.

The region is also known for its unrest because of two reasons:

• Many powers act in the region to influence countries creating proxy command centres.
• The sectarian divide between Saudi Arabia and Iran leading to clashes and heightened tensions.

British Control

• For eight decades prior to 1970, this body of water was a closely guarded British lake, administered in good measure by imperial civil servants from India.
• This control gave the British Empire exclusive powers in the Gulf in the key early decades of oil exploration and development in this century.
• When that era ended, regional players sought to assert themselves.

American Interests

• Regional rivalry and conflicts meant USA meddling in the region. A US State Department report in 1973 said, ‘The upshot of all these cross currents is that the logic of Saudi-Iranian cooperation is being undercut by psychological, nationalistic, and prestige factors, which are likely to persist for a long time.’
• The Nixon and the Carter Doctrines were the logical outcomes to ensure American hegemony.
• According to the Nixon Doctrine, the U.S. sought to supply arms and assistance to its “threatened” allies and friends, provided that they assumed the primary responsibility for providing the necessary manpower.
• The United States would maintain a small naval force in the Gulf.
• The Carter Doctrine is the term widely given to the US policy of ensuring western dominance of the greater Persian Gulf area and using military means if deemed necessary to ensure the unhindered export of Persian Gulf oil to international markets.
• The Iranian Revolution put an end to the Twin Pillar approach and disturbed the strategic balance.
• The Iraq-Iran War enhanced U.S. interests and role.
• Finally the Security Council through Resolution 598 (1987) wanted to explore ‘measures to enhance the security and stability in the region’.

The essential ingredients of such a framework would thus be to ensure:

• Conditions of peace and stability in individual littoral states;
• Freedom to all states of the Gulf littoral to exploit their hydrocarbon and other natural resources and export them;
• Freedom of commercial shipping in international waters of the Persian Gulf;
• Freedom of access to, and outlet from, Gulf waters through the Strait of Hormuz;
• Prevention of conflict that may impinge on the freedom of trade and shipping and: prevention of emergence of conditions that may impinge on any of these considerations.
• Could such a framework be self-sustaining or require external guarantees for its operational success? If the latter, what should its parameters be?

The GCC and the U.S. link

• The past two decades have revalidated William Fulbright’s observation that statesmen often confuse great power with total power and great responsibility with total responsibility. The war in Iraq and its aftermath testify to it.
• The U.S. effort to ‘contain’ the Iranian revolutionary forces, supplemented by the effort of the Arab states of the littoral (except Iraq) through the instrumentality of the Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC (1981), to coordinate, cooperate and integrate to ‘serve the sublime objectives of the Arab Nation’ initially met with success in some functional fields and a lack of it in its wider objectives.

Regional Instability and changed priorities of USA

• At the same time, geopolitical factors and conflicts elsewhere in the West Asian region (Yemen, Syria and Libya) has aggravated global and regional relationships and disturbed US-Iran relationship further.
• Iran’s nuclear programme agreed to by the western powers and the Obama Administration, but is disowned by U.S. President Donald Trump, whose strident policies have taken the region to the brink of an armed conflict.
• This means USA has changed its priorities and might have failed to keep up the commitment to sub-regional security. Many GCC countries are now worried about threats (political and ideological rather than territorial) from Iran.

An evolving transformation

• Growing threat has pushed countries to adopt individual strategies, conflicting tactical and subjective considerations without a common GCC threat perception.
• These have been aggravated by the global economic crisis, the immediate and longer term impact of COVID-19 on regional economies, the problems in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and the decline in oil prices.
• One credible assessment done recently suggests that in the emerging shape of the region, ‘Saudi Arabia is a fading power, UAE, Qatar and Iran are emerging as the new regional leaders and Oman and Iraq will have to struggle to retain their sovereign identities.’
• The GCC is effectively ended, and OPEC is becoming irrelevant as oil policy is now under the global control.
• These changes will be further amplified with external intervention bringing a fundamental transformation to how the Persian Gulf is viewed.

Exploring working arrangements with Iran

• With the Arab League not living up to its objective, the GCC on life-support system, the Arab states of this sub-region are left with individual approaches to explore working arrangements with Iraq and Iran.
• Oman had always kept its lines of communication with Iran open.
• Kuwait and Qatar had continued to hold talks silently.
• UAE has also initiated similar pragmatic arrangements.
• These could set the stage for a wider dialogue. Both Iran and the GCC states could be the beneficiaries of such an arrangement.
• Record shows that the alternative of exclusive security arrangements promotes armament drives, enhances insecurity and aggravates regional tensions. It unavoidably opens the door for Great Power interference.

India’s ties
With GCC

• The bilateral relationship, economic and political, with the GCC has blossomed in recent years. The governments are India-friendly and Indian-friendly and appreciate the benefits of a wide-ranging relationship.
• This is well reflected in the bilateral trade of around $121 billion and remittances of $49 billion from a workforce of over nine million.
• GCC suppliers account for around 34% of our crude imports and national oil companies in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi are partners in a $44 billion investment in the giant Ratnagiri oil refinery. In addition, Saudi Aramco is reported to take a 20% stake in Reliance oil-to-chemicals business.
• The current adverse impact of the pandemic on our economic relations with the GCC countries has now become a matter of concern.

With Iran

• The relationship with Iran, complex at all times and more so recently, on account of overt American pressure, has economic potential and geopolitical relevance on account of its actual or alleged role in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
• Iran also neighbours Turkey and some countries of Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea region.
• Its size, politico-technological potential and economic resources, cannot be wished away, regionally and globally, but can be harnessed for wider good.

What helps India?

• India has avoided involvement in local or regional disputes. Indian interests do not entail power projection; they necessitate in their totality, peace and regional stability, freedom of navigation and access to the region’s markets in terms of trade, technology and manpower resources.
• It has been assessed that Saudi Arabia is a fading power whereas UAE, Qatar and Iran are emerging as the new regional leaders. Oman and Iraq will have to struggle to retain their sovereign identities.
• Thus, Indian interests would be best served if the stability in the region is ensured through cooperative security since the alternative, of competitive security options, cannot ensure durable peace.