The GCC puts on its armor

Ever since it was established in 1981, it was clear that the six-member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council would be looking beyond the creation of a powerful international trading bloc. A single currency will in time cement the business and commercial ties.
But from the outset, GCC leaders also saw that there was a security component to their ever-closer links. The Iran-Iraq war demonstrated the rising level of threat that was coming from the other side of the Gulf. The Iranians proved themselves willing to shut the Strait of Hormuz as part of the 1984 “Tanker War." Saddam’s treacherous August 1990 invasion of Kuwait underlined the importance of one of the GCC’s founding principles. This was that an attack on one member state is deemed to be an attack on them all.
The threat by Iran in 2011 to again shut the Hormuz Strait only boosted the rationale for a robust and coordinated GCC military response.
The challenges posed by Tehran have not gone away. Indeed the Iranians have increased their interference in the affairs of friendly neighbor states. For Iraq that meddling has had wide-ranging and deadly results. The outcome of Tehran’s messing with Iraq now brings GCC states with a new danger — the rise of new and unpitying form of terrorism. There is no debating with ISIS. It will agree to nothing save on its own extreme terms. Until it has been smashed on the battlefield, it will not consider negotiation. And maybe even in defeat, it will still stick to its mad and unprincipled aims.
Bahrain’s foreign minister summed up very neatly the danger the GCC is facing:
“If Afghanistan was a primary school for terrorists, then Syria and Iraq is a university for them — these are serious threats.”
Given the looming presence of IS bigots in Iraq and Houthi rebels in Yemen, it is right that the GCC is expanding its military cooperation. The planned launch of a Joint Military Command to counter Iranian threats and the rising danger of terrorism, will absolutely be the right move.
The new air command, to be based here in Saudi Arabia, will send two clear messages. The first is that Iran should back off. It should look to its own deep sanction-led economic problems at home. It should not be seeking to create trouble among those countries that surround it. The joint military command is the robust response that underpins this message to Tehran.
Surprisingly, some defense commentators have dismissed the move as likely to be lacking in substance and effectiveness. One issue raised is the alleged incompatibility of weapons systems and command and control operations. Such an analysis defies what has already been achieved.
In 1984 the Peninsular Shield Force (PSF) was created. Based here in Saudi Arabia at the King Khalid Military City at Hafar Al Batin, this 10,000-strong unit consisted of two brigades with troops drawn from all GCC countries. The PSF has carried out joint maneuvers with the troops of individual GCC member states. In the first Gulf War, its ranks were expanded as had been planned, though it did not itself take part in the liberation of Kuwait.
The PSF has laid the groundwork, in terms of operational procedures and the integration of communications and weapons systems. It has facilitated significant joint exercises with air and naval assets, as well as land forces. It has seen the development of important early warning systems.
The only thing the PSF was never tasked to do was to consider how to combat the threat of terrorism. This bloody monster could hardly have been imagined 30 years ago. The sheer nihilistic destruction of Al-Qaeda and IS would have seemed impossible in 1984. Nor would many in GCC countries have been able to anticipate the effect of terrorists who claimed, odiously, to be acting in the name of Islam. That claim has inveigled young men and women throughout the Muslim world into its psychotic ranks.
Therefore the Joint Military Command will not only be bringing the armed forces of the GCC closer together. It will also, if necessary, create a powerful intelligence component. This will enable the success of ground and air operations against the terrorists.
That the GCC has responded so swiftly to the urgent need to defend itself militarily from outside threats says something else important about the organization. It suggests that what can be achieved in terms of defense can also be attained in terms of ever-closer economic and financial cooperation.