Gulf Arab leaders meeting on Monday will discuss closer union between their six states because of what they see as growing threats from Iran and al Qaeda after the Arab uprisings, but significant political obstacles loom. Some members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which includes Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, worry that convergence might spell dominance by the group’s largest member, Saudi Arabia. They also view dimly reports that Saudi Arabia will merge initially with Bahrain, where majority Shi’ite Muslims have rebelled against a monarchy that like the other GCC dynasties is Sunni Muslim and is allied with the United States against Iran. “Qatar sees this all as Saudi’s way of undermining the Gulf states’ bilateral relations and forcing its own agenda,” said a source close to the Qatari government. Smaller Gulf Arab states fear losing economic and political influence to Saudi Arabia, which has a population five times greater than the next largest member, Oman, and dominates the region’s all-important oil and gas sector. Riyadh’s overarching concern is its regional tussle for influence with Iran, its Shi’ite Islamist arch-rival on the other side of the Gulf, and it wants more defense integration and foreign policy coordination to help in that struggle. The Saudis believe Iran used the fall of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 2003 as a launchpad towards realizing region-wide supremacy, and they accuse Tehran of fomenting the uprising in Bahrain and unrest among Saudi Arabia’s own Shi’ite minority.
