The Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) Collectively National Policy
The Gulf Cooperation Council/Countries was established through an agreement that was concluded in May 1981. The objective of the council was to review the special relations, geographic proximity, regional political system, and to promote security in the Arabic countries, especially in the Middle East region (Patrick 2011). On the other hand, it is the interest of the GCC to improve coordination, integration, and interconnection within the Middle East States in all field. This means that the association was set to promote the economy, trade, finance, legislation, and technical progress for the State Members who are directly involved in the operation of the GCC. Thus, this paper focuses on discussing the national security of the GCC and the way the council is doing to promote security in the region, specifically relating to the nuclear threats from Iran.
As one of the goals of the GCC group is to bring together various countries within the Middle East region, the council has successfully promoted security in countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia (Koch 2010). The initial goal of the association was to respond to security turmoil that was brought by the Iran-Iraq war. Although GCC has withstood the calamities that have engulfed the Middle East security, the association has also achieved noticeable progress in the integration of different states in the Arabic region (Koch 2010). In other words, the GCC is playing an important role in dealing with the political and national security matters at the sub-regional level in the Middle East and the Gulf. Koch (2010) further says that GCC member states have established a stable political background, in which the association has improved security in the area at the present time more than ever. With some of the countries members such as Saudi Arabia posturing serious threat to Middle East countries, the prevailing GCC foreign policies have been supportive to the countries under threat, in which the policies are viewed by the GCC as the principle of religion and politics in Saudi Arabia (Patrick 2011).
In addition, the Iranian nuclear issue has become a global threat, especially to the GCC countries. Huang (2016) notes that the Iranian nuclear issue and its relation to the security matter in the GCC region have been top issue that United Nation is focusing on whereby UN is holding discussions on the nuclear security agenda as a common threat modeled by Iran. In other words, since the Iranian nuclear issue has importantly increased tension in the Middle East and North Africa region, the issue has attracted much attention from both the UN and GCC (Patrick 2011). For example, the nuclear issue has brought tension between Iran and Israel as well as between Iran and its Gulf neighbors. For the GCC to deal with the security threats that has been perpetrated by Iran with nuclear issues, the council has come up with negotiation programs, where there are talks between Iran and GCC countries regarding the matter (Hussain and Abdullah 2015). The study by Huang (2016) reveals that GCC has also introduced interaction program whereby the group continues to emphasize on the interaction between Iran and the rest of the world concerning the nuclear issue.
From the understanding of the discussion on the GCC and about the issue of Iran and nuclear matter, one can come me up with several recommendations. As such, with the understanding of the foreign policies that are set by GCC together with the Iran nuclear issue, it can be recommended that an evaluation is needed, where the GCC will review its foreign policies in order to come up with policies that will emerge as a focal point for the State Members. The review of the collective foreign policies that are set by the GCC will enhance the organization to ensure that there is a standstill and rebalanced political powers in the Middle East region.
Bibliography
Huang, X., 2016. The Iranian Nuclear Issue and Regional Security: Dilemmas, Responses, and the Future. Department of Political Affairs, Middle East, and West Asia Division. Sabbatical Leave Report. Available at https://hr.un.org/sites/hr.un.org/files/The%20Iranian%20Nuclear%20Issue%20and%20Regional%20Security.pdf (Accessed 4 Nov 2016)
Hussain, N. and Abdullah, S., 2015. Iran Nuclear Deal: Implications for Regional Security. Journal of Political Studies, 22(2), p.475-493.
Koch, C., 2010. The GCC as a Regional Security Organization. Konrad Adenaur Stiftung KAS International Reports, pp.24-35.
Patrick, N., 2011 The GCC: Gulf State Integration or Leadership Cooperation? Kuwait Programme on Development, Governance and Globalisation in the Gulf States research papers, 19. The London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.
Young, K.E. 2013. The Emerging Interventionists of the GCC. LSE Middle East Centre paper series, 02. The London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.
