British Policy in the Persian Gulf, 1961-1968

Conceptions of Informal Empire

Kenneth A. Loparo

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137326720
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia británica

An in-depth analysis of Great Britain's policy in the oil-rich Persian Gulf region during the last years of British imperialism in the area, covering the period from the independence of Kuwait to the decision of the Wilson Government to withdraw from the Gulf.

1

Structural Foundations

1.1 Constitutional relations between Great Britain and the Persian Gulf States

It is not easy to define the constitutional relationship that existed between Great Britain and the states of the Persian Gulf before the former withdrew from the area in 1971. Certainly Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman, and the seven Trucial States never fitted into any of the categories of constitutional dependency that constituted Britain’s formal empire: at no moment in history were they colonies, protectorates, condominiums, or mandate territories.¹ The situation was further complicated by the fact that each of these Gulf States had a different legal relationship with Britain. From the point of view of international law, while the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman was always a fully independent state,² throughout Britain’s long presence in the region, the constitutional status of the others was described differently by British officials and politicians, being variously referred to as protected states, dependencies, dependent states, and states in exclusive treaty relations with the British Government.

The term commonly used during the period with which this book is concerned – that is, 1961–1968, was ‘independent states in special treaty relations with the United Kingdom’.³ The vagueness of this description indicates that Britain’s legal position vis-à-vis the Persian Gulf States was sui generis and unique within the British Empire.⁴ It was the complex outcome of an evolution that had begun early in the nineteenth century, when the British East India Company was still empowered to conclude treaties in the name of the British Crown.⁵ From 1858 to 1947 the British Government of India was responsible for relations with the Gulf States; following Indian independence in 1947, the Foreign Office in London then took over.⁶ Development of the legal connection between Britain and the Gulf States was deeply influenced by the flexibility and the pragmatism that characterized British imperial expansion in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.⁷ The consequence of this process was described by the British political agent in Dubai, Glencairn Balfour-Paul:

[...] attempts by jurists to define the nature of a British Protected State have a somewhat ex post facto look. Indeed the indeterminate status of the Gulf Shaykhdoms wears in retrospect all the marks of that scrupulous imprecision characteristic of so many of Britain’s imperial contrivances. Britain may be said to have made up the rules of the game as she went along, with the result that no one really knew what they were.⁸

His view was borne out by the numerous lists of Britain’s undertakings and commitments in the Persian Gulf that were prepared by the Foreign Office during the 1960s. The constitutional situation was so complex that the British Government itself did not always know what it was officially entitled to do in the area. The relationship between Britain and the Gulf States was based on a combination of published and secret treaties, unofficial letters, and oral assurances.⁹ With regard to their differing implications for the sovereignty of the Persian Gulf States, the agreements reached between their rulers and the British Government fell into two groups. The first included treaties that concerned the external relations of these states and the responsibilities that Britain had acquired in this respect. The second group consisted of agreements granting Britain specific rights to intervene in the internal affairs of the Persian Gulf States.

From the end of the eighteenth century, the East India Company felt that the Arabs of the Gulf represented an increasing threat to its trade with India through their frequent raiding and levying of tolls on the company’s vessels.¹⁰ To re-establish maritime tranquillity and put an end to these disturbing practices, which it regarded as acts of piracy, the company authorized naval expeditions into the Gulf and, in 1820, signed a General Treaty of Peace with the shaikhs of Ras al-Khaima, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, and Umm al-Quwain.¹¹ When this treaty proved to be ineffective in ending maritime violence in the Gulf, the East India Company mediated a series of truces at sea among the leading shaikhs of the area, a development that culminated on 4 May 1853 with the Treaty of Perpetual Maritime Truce between the East India Company and the signatories of the General Treaty.¹²

The signing shaikhs promised that, should the perpetual peace agreed upon be broken, they would not themselves retaliate but would instead inform the East India Company authorities of the breach and await the company’s mediation of the dispute. Article 3 of the treaty contained a specific undertaking by the East India Company to supervise a state of truce at sea,¹³ and a naval squadron under the command of the company’s resident was then assigned to patrol the Gulf and to enforce the treaty terms.¹⁴ In requiring the parties to refrain from retaliating against external attacks, including even unprovoked acts of aggression, the Treaty of Perpetual Maritime Truce denied the local rulers any right of self-defence, while helping to install Britain’s maritime hegemony in the Persian Gulf.¹⁵ The Treaty of Perpetual Maritime Truce was initially concluded with only six states. However, this changed in 1952 when the British Government recognized Shaikh Muhammad bin Hamad as ‘Ruler of the Shaikhdom of Fujairah under British protection’,¹⁶ and with the ruler’s acceptance of the same commitments that bound the other six rulers to Britain. Fujairah became the seventh Trucial State, a name used by the British Government until 1971.¹⁷ The term merely described the fact that the seven shaikhdoms shared the same constitutional relationship with Britain; it did not describe any formal links among them.¹⁸ The name was dropped following Britain’s withdrawal from the Persian Gulf and the founding of the United Arab Emirates in 1971.

While the General Treaty of 1820 and the Treaty of Perpetual Maritime Truce of May 1853 gave the British East India Company the right to enforce maritime tranquillity in the Persian Gulf, neither formally excluded any third party from the relationship between Britain and the rulers of the Trucial States.¹⁹ This arrangement was sufficient to preserve the British interest in peace at sea in the Persian Gulf provided that no other external power intervened in the region’s affairs. However, the situation changed towards the end of the nineteenth century when France, Russia, and Persia showed increasing interest in the states of the Persian Gulf. This intrusion into the affairs of the Persian Gulf represented a possible danger to the defence of Britain’s Indian Empire and to the safety of imperial communications. Between 1865 and 1869, the British had established two telegraph lines through the Persian Gulf, one land-based, the other submarine, which had enabled much speedier contact between Britain and India. This had turned the Persian Gulf into a very important corridor for imperial communications and made it an area that was highly relevant to Britain’s global strategy.²⁰ This strategic interest motivated the British Government of India in December 1887 to conclude ‘Exclusive Treaties’ with the rulers of the Trucial States,²¹ according to which the rulers promised not to enter into agreements with any foreign government except the British, not to allow any representative of a foreign power to reside inside their territory without British consent, and never to ‘cede, sell, mortgage or give for occupation’ any part of their territories, except to the British Government.²²

These Exclusive Agreements, which were added to, instead of replacing, the Treaty of Perpetual Maritime Truce, formed the legal basis for the British position in the Gulf and remained valid until the final withdrawal of the British in 1971. The commitment of the Trucial rulers not to correspond or enter into treaty relations with any government other than that of Britain meant that the British themselves dealt with the external relations of the Trucial States. Until its decision in 1968 to withdraw from the Gulf, the British Government insisted that no foreign government should be allowed to open a diplomatic representation in the Trucial States. The rulers of the Trucial States were thus prevented from having contact with any other powers or from joining international organizations.²³ While none of the Trucial States – with the exception of Fujairah – had been put explicitly under Britain’s protection, the British Government regarded Article 3 of the Treaty of Perpetual Maritime Truce, which had provided British supervision of the truce at sea, as an implicit commitment to defend the integrity of the Trucial States.²⁴

The evolution of Bahrain’s treaty relationship with Britain, though similar to those with the Trucial States, differed in some important points. Like the latter, Bahrain was admitted to the General Treaty of 1820 and thereby promised to abstain from piracy in the Persian Gulf.²⁵ However, it took no part in the development of the Trucial system in the area during the decades following the General Treaty. Instead, Shaikh Muhammad Al Khalifah concluded a Perpetual Treaty of Peace and Friendship with the British Government of India on 31 May 1861.²⁶ Unlike the Maritime Truce of 1853, this treaty contained an explicit British commitment to the defence of Bahrain, with the ruler promising in turn to end all warlike activities at sea.²⁷ In 1892, one week after the rulers of the Trucial shaikhdoms had signed their Exclusive Agreements, the Ruler of Bahrain concluded an identical treaty with Britain.²⁸

The constitutional link between Qatar and Britain was more recent in origin than the links with Bahrain or the seven Trucial shaikhdoms. The East India Company and later the British Government of India had regarded Qatar as a dependency of Bahrain during the nineteenth century and, therefore, saw no need to make a shaikh of the Qatari peninsula sign the Treaty of Perpetual Maritime Truce or an Exclusive Agreement.²⁹ Only after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War was Qatar formally incorporated in the system of British protection in the Persian Gulf.³⁰ In the Treaty of 3 November 1916, the Ruler of Qatar accepted the commitments made by Bahrain and the Trucial States through the General Treaty and the various maritime truce treaties. He also promised not to conduct relations with countries other than Britain or to allow diplomats or representatives of other powers to reside within his territory. This undertaking enabled Britain to conduct Qatar’s relations with the outside world on behalf of the ruler until 1971. As a quid pro quo, the British Government of India promised formally to protect Qatar against all external aggression.³¹

Like Qatar, Kuwait was never part of Britain’s Trucial system in the Persian Gulf. Until the end of the nineteenth century, the British regarded Kuwait as a dependency of the Ottoman Empire. Since the Kuwaitis had not been involved in the maritime struggles in the Gulf during the nineteenth century, there was no reason to incorporate Kuwait into the Trucial system or to challenge the Turkish claim.³² However, due to increasing German and Russian involvement in the region towards the end of the nineteenth century, the British changed their attitude: as Sir Arthur Godley, permanent under-secretary at the India Office, famously remarked, Britain did not want Kuwait, but neither did it want anybody else to have it.³³ Therefore the British Government of India, represented by the political resident, Lieutenant-Colonel Malcolm J. Meade, concluded an Exclusive Agreement with Shaikh Mubarak on 23 January 1899, according to which ‘Kuwait undertook not to receive agents or representatives of other powers or to alienate territory without prior British consent.’³⁴ What the British offered in return remained vague: the Amir of Kuwait was promised the ‘good offices’ of the British Government, without further specification as to what these offices included³⁵; nor was there any formal commitment by Britain to defend Kuwait militarily. Only with the outbreak of the First Wold War did the British promise to protect Kuwait against foreign aggression.³⁶

In June 1961 an Exchange of Letters between the British Government and the Ruler of Kuwait formally abrogated the Exclusive Agreement of 1899.³⁷ The new agreement stressed that both sides wished for continued good and close relations, and provided for consultations on subjects of mutual concern. It also confirmed the process of Kuwait’s acquiring independence, which had started in 1959 when the Amir insisted on conducting Kuwait’s external relations with its Arab neighbours himself and began to apply for full membership for Kuwait in international organizations.³⁸ While the 1961 agreement formally confirmed Kuwait’s independence and full sovereignty, it did not end the military protection that Britain had extended to Kuwait since 1914. The Exchange of Letters stated that ‘nothing in these conclusions shall affect the readiness of Her Majesty’s Government to assist the Kuwaiti Government if the latter requests such assistance.’³⁹

Britain’s constitutional relationship with the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman was different from that with the Trucial States, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait. Between 1961 and 1968 the sultanate was a fully independent and sovereign state which had not been formally granted British protection.⁴⁰ The British Government had never invited Oman to join the system of maritime truce in the Persian Gulf, nor had the sultan ever entered into an Exclusive Agreement comparable to those signed by the rulers of Bahrain, the Trucial States, Qatar, and Kuwait.⁴¹ In 1891, the sultan did sign an agreement that committed him not to give away parts of his territory without British consent. However, this did not include any clauses that prevented him from condu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series Editors’ Preface
• Photographs
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Maps
• Introduction
• 1. Structural Foundations
• 2. The Kuwait Crisis and Its Consequences
• 3. The Limits to Anglo-American Cooperation
• 4. Improving Britain’s Image: The Modernization Policy
• 5. Excluding the Arab League: The Development Policy
• 6. An Obstacle to Modernization and Federation: Shaikh Shakhbut of Abu Dhabi
• 7. The Prospect of Britain’s Withdrawal
• Conclusion
• Appendix: List of Important Personalities
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index