{"id":143261,"date":"2019-09-23T12:01:01","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T11:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=143261"},"modified":"2024-09-23T14:42:01","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T13:42:01","slug":"growing-tensions-on-the-road-to-persian-gulf-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/09\/growing-tensions-on-the-road-to-persian-gulf-security\/","title":{"rendered":"Growing Tensions on the Road to Persian Gulf Security"},"content":{"rendered":"

17 Sep 2019<\/em> – The 14 Sep drone attacks on oil installations in eastern Saudi Arabia have dimmed hope for U.S. – Iranian discussions aimed to reduce tensions and potentially end the armed conflict in Yemen.\u00a0\u00a0Tensions have increased, and oil prices have risen. Certain hopes created by the initiatives of the French President during the G7 meeting in Biarritz, France and the forced departure of John Bolton as U.S. National Security Advisor have lessened.\u00a0\u00a0In fact, the aim of the attacks may have been to lessen the possibility of Iran – U.S. discussions which might have taken place during the start of the U.N. General Assembly in New York later in September.<\/p>\n

There is a good deal of speculation as to who fired the drones and from where.\u00a0\u00a0The Ansar Allah Movement (often called the Houthis) has taken credit, but some specialists doubt that they have\u00a0\u00a0the technical know-how to send drones from Yemen to the targets in Saudi Arabia.\u00a0\u00a0Some speculate that the drones were sent from southern Iraq, possibly by Iranian-backed militias such as the Popular Mobilization Forces or by units of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards stationed in Iraq.\u00a0\u00a0The Revolutionary Guards are nearly “a state within the state” and could take initiatives without orders from the Iranian President or the Foreign Minister.\u00a0\u00a0The Revolutionary Guards could have motivations to prevent fruitful U.S. – Iranian talks at the U.N.\u00a0\u00a0There is also speculation that the drone attacks could be linked to increased tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates concerning the future of south Yemen where the two countries support different factions.<\/p>\n

Whatever the locations from which the drones were launched and whomever pulled the switch, the consequences are clear.\u00a0\u00a0At a time when governments were speaking of a possible path to reduce tensions a “No Exit” sign has been put up near the start of the road.\u00a0\u00a0The road leads to ever-greater tensions which may slip out of the control of governments.\u00a0\u00a0Thus, in addition to the French proposal at the G7, there was an earlier Russian government proposal.<\/p>\n

On 23 July 2019, the Russian Government’s “Collective Security for the Persian Gulf Region” was presented in Moscow by the Deputy Foreign Minister, Mikhail Bogdanov.\u00a0\u00a0The Russian proposal for Collective Security for the Persian Gulf follows closely the procedures which led to the 1975 Helsinki Final Act and the creation of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.\u00a0\u00a0Bogdanov stressed multilateral ism as a mechanism for all involved in the assessment of situations, the decision-making process, and\u00a0\u00a0the implementation of decisions.<\/p>\n

It is not clear how the Russian proposal for a Helsinki-type conference will progress.\u00a0\u00a0Russia does not play a leading role in the Middle East today as the USSR did in Europe in the 1970s.\u00a0\u00a0In the lead up to the Helsinki Accords of 1975, non-governmental organizations had played an active role in informal East-West discussions to see what issues were open to negotiations and on what issues progress might be made.\u00a0\u00a0There is a need for such non-governmental efforts today as the Persian Gulf and the wider Middle East are growing ever-more tense.<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Ren\u00e9 Wadlow is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a><\/em>. He <\/em>is President of the Association of World Citizens, an international peace organization with consultative status with ECOSOC, the United Nations organ facilitating international cooperation and problem-solving in economic and social issues, and editor of <\/em>Transnational Perspectives.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

17 Sep 2019 – The 14 Sep drone attacks on oil installations in Saudi Arabia have dimmed hope for U.S. – Iranian discussions. Tensions have increased, and oil prices have risen. In fact, the aim of the attacks may have been to lessen the possibility of Iran – U.S. discussions which might have taken place during the start of the UNGA later in September. There is a need for non-governmental efforts today as the Persian Gulf and the wider Middle East are growing ever-more tense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":55053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[120,354,1268,267,504,742,767,291,86,119,109,287,701,380,880,265,292,70,126,118,172,75,174],"class_list":["post-143261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-conflict","tag-economics","tag-european-union","tag-geopolitics","tag-international-relations","tag-iran","tag-middle-east","tag-military","tag-occupation","tag-peace","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-solutions","tag-state-terrorism","tag-terrorism","tag-un","tag-usa","tag-violence","tag-war","tag-west","tag-world","tag-yemen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275185,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143261\/revisions\/275185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}